Escuchar 2 Guys And A Chainsaw

With the premiere of The Exorcist: Believer, the 50th anniversary of the original film, AND the recent death of William Friedkin, there is no WAY we could let the year come to a close without covering one of the most notorious horror films of all time. Long-time listeners of the podcast know and understand why we tend to shy away from covering such iconic films. What can we possibly say that hasn’t already been said about one of the most notorious films of all time? So we ended up with more of a celebration of the legacy of the film (as one of our Patrons put it) than a typical play-by-play review. But oh boy, was it fun to revisit this film after so long, and be reminded of just how good of a FILM it is overall – horror or otherwise. Enjoy! the exorcist poster [https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/11/exorcist_posterbig.jpg?resize=600%2C789&ssl=1]https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/11/exorcist_posterbig.jpg?ssl=1 Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript Transcript coming soon. https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F11%2F16%2Fthe-exorcist%2F&linkname=The%20Exorcisthttps://www.addtoany.com/add_to/mastodon?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F11%2F16%2Fthe-exorcist%2F&linkname=The%20Exorcisthttps://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F11%2F16%2Fthe-exorcist%2F&linkname=The%20Exorcisthttps://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F11%2F16%2Fthe-exorcist%2F&title=The%20Exorcist

We’re taking our 367th episode to celebrate our 366th! Why, you may ask? Because at 366, you now have enough episodes to watch an episode a day for a full year – even on a leap year. To christen this milestone, we chose this Hulu-exclusive that came out around the pandemic days. It’s a charming little zom-com that isn’t afraid to pop a handful of zombie children in there. Very reminiscent of Cooties [https://chainsawhorror.com/2016/08/23/cooties/], and fun for the whole family, really. More or less. Just don’t confuse it with the Fred Savage / Howie Mandel film of the same name. little monsters poster [https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/11/LITTLE_MONSTERS_Character_Poster_-_Lupita_Nyongo-600x889-1.png?resize=600%2C889&ssl=1]https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/11/LITTLE_MONSTERS_Character_Poster_-_Lupita_Nyongo-600x889-1.png?ssl=1 Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript Little Monsters (2019) Episode 367, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw 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 have come to our 367th episode. It is a special day for us. We’ve been talking about this for about a month now, right? Our 365th episode was two weeks ago. You know, I think I had said to you, oh man, we missed doing our Wes Craven special for like the 350th episode. Like the 350th just blew right by us. We didn’t even notice. Yeah. And you were like, that’s okay. 365 is more important to me. Yeah. 365. 366 if it’s a leap year. It means you can listen to an episode every single day out of the year, even if it’s a leap year. So we thought we would take our 367th episode to do something a little special to us anyway and celebrate that we have come this far and hopefully we’ll have another 366 episodes ahead of us. But this is the beginning. Of a new year, in a way. That’s true. Right? It’s like, happy new year, Craig. Happy,  Craig: happy new year to  Todd: you. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?  Craig: Yeah. It, I don’t know. You know, the older I get, the, the more quickly time just seems to fly by. I mean, it does feel like we’ve been doing this for a long time, but…It’s hard to wrap my head around that I’ve even seen 367 movies.  Todd: Right? That is a lot  Craig: of hours that we have put into this. And let’s, let’s be real. A lot of our episodes go over so more than 367 hours, not including, not including many soads, not including like special interviews and stuff like that. Yeah. Todd: That’s, that’s crazy. We can’t even remember all the movies we’ve done. Oh no. We’ll bring movies up, we’ll be like, Did we do that? I can’t remember. Gotta go to the website and check. How lame is that? But some of that’s because we’re getting older too, yeah.  Craig: I guess. But it’s fun though. You know, every, It’s, it’s kinda, I don’t know, it’s kinda cool to have something like this scheduled every week. And at this point, we’ve done all of our favorite movies. Movies for the most part. Mm hmm. There are there are maybe a couple we haven’t done I don’t know like have we we I know that you’re just dying to do the exorcist that that’s Have we ever done the original Poltergeist?  Todd: We haven’t no. Yeah, see so it’s a big one for both of us. So there’s still a few out there there are still a few  Craig: out there’s a few of our favorites that we haven’t done, but We’re kind of in a place now where every week we’re seeing something that neither of us have seen before. Yeah. And that’s, that’s fun. Now this week is kind of an exception because the movie that we’re doing this week is one that I saw during COVID lockdown. And I watched it with Alan and I liked it so much and he did too. And I mentioned it to you. Uh, around that time. But then I just kind of kept putting it off. Every time you would ask what I wanted to do, it was always in the back of my mind. But for some reason, I think I like this movie so much that I was worried. Todd: That I would hate it? No, not that you would hate it, but like That you’d have to spend an hour defending it? No,  Craig: that I won’t be able to do it justice. Ah, yeah. I think it was what I was worried about. I’m excited. Yes. Because I watched it again, and I loved it again, and I’m super excited. Well, the  Todd: movie is, uh, Little Monsters from 2019. Not to be confused with Little Monsters, the Fred Savage and Howie Mandel movie, which, by the way, is the movie I assumed you were talking about when you brought this up. In fact, we’re so lucky that I happened to mention it one more time and you caught me, because I would have come here prepared to talk about that movie. And you know  Craig: what? That would have been fine. I’ve seen that movie so many times. Yeah. It even like Reese, I watched it recently. So if, if we had made that mistake, yeah, I did. It’s really good. It was, it was on one of the free, uh, streaming services and it still holds up. I think it’s a great movie that we should do. We will do it sometime when we get around. I’d love to do another gateway horrors. month. Someday. We talk about these months all the time. We’ll see. Um, but that would be, that would be a good, that would be a good one. But no, this one is a 2019s and I don’t remember seeing any ad campaign for this movie. I don’t remember seeing a trailer for it. I think it just popped up on Hulu and the cover features the star of the movie, well, the female lead of the movie, Lupita Nyong’o, who on top of being a brilliant actress is maybe the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Uh, she’s just stunningly, stunningly beautiful. And so, uh, and I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in, so that was enough for me. Um, and I talked Alan into it, and we watched it, and I was blown away. Because you know that I’m not a big zombie. movie fan. Yeah, for sure. Of all of the sub genres, that’s probably my least favorite. And this is 100 percent a gross zombie movie. Mm hmm. But, it’s also one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. Todd: It’s a sweet, cute movie. I, I, I think the reason why I hadn’t heard of it and you hadn’t really seen much about it, even when it came out, is because it was on a stre it was like an ex a streaming service exclusive. Uh huh. So many of these movies, Especially the ones up on Shudder. Like, if you didn’t have Shudder, you wouldn’t know about them. That’s true. This one surprises me, though, because of the names in it. You’ve got Lupito Nyong’o, which, by this time, she had already done, I think, 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther, Star Wars. Star Wars. Yeah, she was right in the middle of, I think, between the second and last Star Wars of the three. She was about to do Us, and that was starting to get some excitement behind it. So, there’s no reason why, on the strength of her alone, this wouldn’t have been able to garner more interest. And then… Josh Gad, who, I don’t know, maybe not everybody recognizes his face, but he, especially at this point, up and coming rising star with Disney. He was, what, LeFou in, um, the Beauty and the Beast live action, which I really liked, Olaf in Frozen. I think, was he doing Book of Mormon at this time on Broadway or not? Yeah,  Craig: well, it was probably, he had done it. That had been a while ago, but he had done it. He originated one of those roles, and he’s great. He’s a, he’s a really funny… Guy. Good singer.  Todd: Yeah. Well, he plays so against type in this movie, that actually it was the director I read an interview with the director, Abe Forsyth, and he said he was really taking a risk by taking this on because he is 100 percent against type in this film and here he was building this, um, you know, career as this Disney guy. Uh huh. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all. I think he’s doing fine.  Craig: Oh no, he’s doing fine. In fact, he is currently in his second season of a television show called, uh, Wolf Like Me. Which is, uh, this director. It’s the same guy. Yeah. Do  Todd: you know anything about this? Have you seen it?  Craig: It’s been on my list to watch forever, and I haven’t gotten around to it, and I didn’t know until we did this. That it was this guy, Abe Forsyth, who’s the writer and director of this movie. Is also, I don’t know if he writes it, directs it, if he’s just the showrunner, I don’t know. But it’s his show, uh, and Josh Gad is, uh, the lead, I think.  Todd: Yeah, it is. And Abe Forsythe himself has done quite a few things. He’s worked as an actor, also as a writer director of many, many things. Previous to this, he got a lot of good press for a movie called Down Under. Which, uh, was also a bit of a comedy, tread similar ground as far as, kind of, there’s like a, sort of a male chauvinistic douchebag character in it, but it was a little more  Craig: dark. Well, all I know about Wolf Like Me is that it is a werewolf show, so like, it’s at The very least horror adjacent. That’s why it’s been, uh, on my list and, and knowing now that it’s this guy, I’m totally into it because, or I’m going to be, because this movie, there are so many good things about it, but I, I think that one of the things is that it’s written so well and it’s so well balanced in terms of there is the gross out zombie stuff. The zombies look Amazing. Yeah, like they’re they’re disgusting and the makeup is is brilliant. It’s so good, but then it’s also Got we should probably just get into talking about it. Cuz yeah,  Todd: probably Well, it was an Oscar winning makeup team, by the way that did those zombies and they You know, definitely took a pay cut, uh, in order to do this movie just because they loved it so much. And I also read that the zombies were all unpaid extras. Yeah, there were thousands of extras in this movie. And uh, they just went out, um, and just did a big call for extras saying, Hey, just play a zombie in this movie. And uh, they went to a zombie walk in Sydney and the crew members handed out flyers to people and just got a thousand or so interested folks and uh, got their zombie makeup applied by Oscar winning makeup guys. So you know. I would totally do that. That would have been a blast, right? So it was, it’s a lower budget movie, but clearly a labor of love. Got a pretty strong cast and a very experienced and excellent writer director behind it, so.  Craig: It really doesn’t look low budget. It doesn’t. It’s shot really nicely. I feel like there are like crane shots and stuff. Oh yeah! Or maybe there um, maybe there are drone shots. That’s probably a little bit cheaper. Yeah, that’s how it’s all done these days. It, it, it had a very limited run, like for a week or two weeks or something. Um, it, it premiered at a festival and then different distributors bought it for different. continents, but Hulu got it here. That’s why it says Hulu original. Well, the  Todd: movie, when you talk about the budget and how it looks, and everything we’re saying about it, it is so similar to Cooties. You remember Cooties? Yeah, I do. It’s sort of like Cooties in tone and style, even like cinematography and degree of comedy and star power. It just, you know, it’s just take those kids and make them six years younger and you’ve got this movie. Cuz cooties took place at an elementary school and this takes place with literal five year olds like all of the kids in this movie are five years  Craig: old very very similar, but Even more so tonally, it was giving me Final Girls, because I cried at least twice in this movie. Todd: You’re such a sap.  Craig: It’s in my notes, and I’m crying.  Todd: We’ll be fun. At the  Craig: end, I won’t spoil anything, but she cries. And I’m cryin with her. Laughter Todd: It’s cute. I don’t know if we were really crying in Cooties to be fair. It’s definitely not exactly like that in its message. And the director really sought out to make this movie like this. He wanted a sweet movie that had something to say about what kids can teach us and shielding the kids from the dangers of the world and also, but he wanted things in a more honest way than he had done before. Because he had done some of these Judd Apatow esque kind of characters, is what he calls them, you know, these kind of douchey male guys who eventually, by the end of the movie, have to sort of change and grow up, you know? And he said that that’s always struck him as a little false, like… He didn’t ever really buy that, that character switch by the end of those movies and he wanted to have a, a, a movie where this guy actually seemed to go through a genuine change and this is the other guy, we haven’t even talked about him, but it’s, the movie’s basically three adults and a bunch of kids, uh, and he is Alexander England and I, he’s a, um, Australian actor and he’s done a lot of stuff, just nothing new. Terribly big, at least that I know of. Alien Covenant, he was  Craig: in that. Oh right, yes, he was. Uh, yeah. He’s Dave, and Dave is that guy that you just described. Like, and I think another strength of this movie Is the acting, like the, especially these three, uh, well no, not even especially, the three adults that you mentioned, Dave, Josh Gad’s character, his name is Teddy McGiggle, because he’s a children’s entertainer, he’s a children’s entertainer, and then there’s Lupita Nyong’o who plays Miss Caroline, who is Dave’s nephew’s kindergarten teacher. Right. The three of them are so… Good like they’re just really really good actors and then usually we’ve talked about this recently, you know, you get kids in movies It’s hit or miss. These kids are f ing gold. Like, they are so cute and good. Ugh, I love these  Todd: kids. The director had something to say about this too. He said that they went through like 700 kids. Because this was a very per we are gonna talk about the movie, but like, he said this is a very personal movie for him. Because it’s directly inspired by some very… Direct parallels with his life. He, his five year old son, um, has some life threatening allergies, and he finally had to take him to kindergarten and put him in someone else’s care for the first time, and he said, that was pretty scary. Yeah. And he and his son He was a chaperone for one of his son’s field trips, which was to a petting zoo, and that’s what happens in this movie. And he said while he was there at the petting zoo, he got the inspiration and the idea for this film. And so, so much of it probably feels so cute and genuine and real, it’s because it comes from… Genuine experience with this guy, you know, as he’s writing it, he’s really relating it with his son and stuff.  Craig: So, and yeah, that’s cute. He and his son are both in the movie. It’s adorable. They just have cameos. Okay, so but yeah, Dave is The guy that you just described before the Judd Apatow guy. He is a washed up Musician like he talks about being in a band, but we never see him playing with this band He’s just a busker and he’s not even a good one  Todd: He’s really shitty. He’s a bad singer, he’s a bad player.  Craig: Yeah, he’s like, and he does a really good job of being really unlikable in the first part. Like, I just, I wanted to We hated him. I wanted to hit him a little bit, and I wanted to make him pull up his pants. Cause he always has his Pants down around his ass Now  Todd: you’re sounding  Craig: old Craig Well, I don’t care and like he’s really funny But in that Judd Apatow way where he’s just really inappropriate. Yeah, and you know, like he caustic Swearing dropping the f bomb left and right even around his You know, what, this kid’s in kindergarten, so what, like, five year old nephew, um, making really lewd sexual jokes and suggestions, um, just smokes weed all the time, jerking off to VR, it opens up with him, um, fighting with his girlfriend, like, it’s all, all of the credits are just a huge montage of them screaming at each other everywhere, like, Let’s, let’s establish that this is not a healthy relationship right off the bat. I just want to be able to go out and have a nice night for once. Is that too much to ask? One  Todd: thing I  Craig: f ed up in the last nine years. Yes, eight years in a row. It’s literally one of the most important things you I know the difference between literal and figurative language. You get  Todd: something from  Craig: me and you never let it go. Come on, I knew it was your birthday. Because you saw it on I just want a little bit of respect. Why does everything have to be an argument? Why do you think? You’re the one raising your voice. But that’s the only way I can be heard. You’re like a child, Dave. I’m like a child? Yeah, you’re like a child. You’re the one shouting at me, you started shouting first.  Todd: Yeah, and then we really don’t see her again, do we? Well,  Craig: well, she breaks up with him, so he goes in to stay with his sister, and that’s where we meet his sister, Tess, I think is her name. Felix is the nephew. This kid, I didn’t even write down his name, he’s a kid, I don’t know if he’s done anything else. He is just a Adorable .  Todd: He  Craig: is, but we find out that he’s allergic to everything and Dave doesn’t like kids. Like he doesn’t even particularly seem to like his nephew. all that much.  Todd: Yeah. It’s like he doesn’t care. Like he’s not. He has no stake in the game, right? He’s a guy, he’s his nephew, he seems to care enough about him, but he doesn’t care to expose him to, you know, he puts the VR gla uh, goggles on him and has him playing a zombie shooter game, which of course horrifies his mother when he comes home. He’s dropping the F bomb all the time. I love that scene where he takes him to school for the first time. Oh god, I was laughing out loud. And he’s making comments about… The kid as they walk through and the kid’s introducing him to all of his friends as his friends come up and either make fun of him for bringing tofu and, you know, lame things to school because he has so many allergies and his mom’s trying to keep him healthy to the girl who comes by and kisses him on the cheek and then quickly runs away He looks down at him, he’s like, yeah, see, you’re already getting the puss, huh? Craig: Oh my god, that was so funny! Yeah, the only thing, he, before that happened, he took, he heard the mom reading to the little kid from Roald Dahl’s The Witches, and she reads a line that says something like, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you, and that like seems… to touch him. You do, you get the insinuation that really all this guy wants is to be loved. Yeah. I mean, he’s such a douche that you’re not really thinking about that at this point, but over the course of the movie, you realize he’s just, uh, God, I don’t know. And there’s reasons, there’s reasons for his behavior that come out later in an exposition dump that works like, yeah, because it’s a genuine conversation. between people that feels very honest and it doesn’t just feel like an exposition dump. Right. But anyway, he tries to get his girlfriend back and he takes the little kid dressed as Darth Vader and this kid does Vader all the time and he talks in a Vader voice, a little kid Vader voice and he’s so adorable and that dynamic between the two of them, even here in the beginning, it’s already getting cute. And, like, he’ll say things, he’ll, the, the kid’ll say, How was that, Uncle Dave? And the uncle’ll be like, It’s good, stay in character. And so he’ll go, he’ll go back to talking in the voice. And that, that carries out throughout the movie. Like, he’ll just throw, and he thinks, the kid thinks he can do the Jedi mind trick. Like, or he’s almost there. That’s what he tells his mom at some point. I’m almost there. I’ve almost got it. It’s adorable. But yes, at school, I mean, it’s almost hard to even believe these kids bullying this kid, Felix, because Felix is so cute and sweet. And, but Dave, uh, they go into the classroom and Ms. Caroline is there and I would react in exactly the same way that he does. He is just immediately. Struck. Blown away by her, which you would be I mean, she’s radiant! She’s standing there in front of, you know, a bank of windows, so she’s just in this heavenly glow, and Lupita Nyong’o is Stunningly, stunningly beautiful. And then of course, you know, he sees her interacting with the children and she’s wonderful with them and they clearly love  Todd: her. She’s got them wrapped around her finger. She knows exactly what to do. She’s like the perfect teacher. Yeah. That,  Craig: and if you read viewer reviews, um, everybody will just go on and on and on. Whether they liked the movie or not, they’re like Lupita Nyong’o is a goddess. And it gets kind of mixed reviews, but. Mixed in that it’s either five stars or one star. Like, people either love it or they hate it. And I just don’t, I don’t get, I feel like you must have a black heart and soul if you don’t like this movie because it’s so sweet. Anyway. Eventually, like, he drops the kid off at school. There’s funny bits, we can’t, I wish we could talk about every joke, cause it’s so funny, but there’s like a, a bit where the one bully, the, I guess he’s supposed to be the big bully, is Max, and he’s kind of this chubby kid, and at some point he kinda, he’s going to his cubby, and he kinda has to scoot behind a door, and Dave totally smacks him in the head with the door. That was pretty funny. But Dave leaves for the day and then comes back to pick the kid up, He overhears another teacher talking to Miss Caroline, um, and saying one of the parents who was supposed to chaperone the trip tomorrow, her kid is sick and so, um, she can’t go and they’re like, well, where are we going to find another chaperone? And Dave’s like, I’m in, now let’s do it. So they’re going on a field trip to, what was it? It’s like…  Todd: Pleasant Valley Farms. Yes. Right next to, as we see as they drive down on the bus, the camera dramatically pans over and there’s… An army testing base right next to it. I laughed out loud.  Craig: So are there American military bases in Australia? I don’t  Todd: know that I did question that myself, but whatever US Army testing facility was what it was. Oh God, it was  Craig: hilarious. Very, very funny. So they’re in the bus and the bus breaks down. So Miss Caroline. at the front of the bus with her little ukulele, um, is singing Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, and all the kids are singing it with her, and it’s just so cute! And like, they’re, she’s adorable, like, she is just playing this role. It’s so genuine, I totally believe. That she is the best kindergarten teacher in all the land. Uh huh. And these kids are just in love with her, and it’s so cute, they’re having such fun together, singing that Taylor Swift song, which… I’m not a huge Swifty, but that song’s a bop. Like, I love that song. You  Todd: can’t hate that song. This was another thing. Apparently, the director said that he was at one of his son’s kindergarten performances, and there was a teacher up there with a ukulele, and the kids were singing Shake It Off. And he didn’t recognize it. He didn’t know it. He turns to someone and says, uh, what is that song? And they’re like, oh, it’s Shake It Off. And he was like, this works so well for the movie I’m writing, and he said he went home that night and added it in. Mm hmm. Problem was, they couldn’t get the rights to it. Big  Craig: shock there. I, I, I couldn’t, when I heard it, when I heard it I couldn’t believe, I was like, wow, I can’t believe they got this, this must have cost them a fortune. Right, well, But it didn’t, I don’t think. No, because  Todd: um, they’d struggled, and Lupita Nyong’o who took this just out of love, I think she agreed to this within 48 hours of being sent the script. They wanted her for it, they weren’t sure if she would take it, but she was looking for a role like this. It’s different from what she’s done before where she’s in a comedy and she’s happy and she liked the idea She could get to sing and she’d learn to play the ukulele all that stuff But they couldn’t get the song and she talked to the director and they were and she’s like look I’m really not even interested in doing this movie if we can’t get this song because it’s so cute It’s so much at the heart of what the movie is trying to say She had met Taylor Swift at one time and had told her that she was going to send her a letter someday. So she sat down and wrote her an email directly asking her for the, uh, rights to this song. And she explained  Craig: why. She explained why it was important to the movie. She explained why it was important to her. Yeah. And, and, and they got it. Taylor Swift. And that’s, you know, again, like I, I don’t have strong feelings about Taylor Swift one way or the other. I like a lot of her songs. Um, I, I don’t, I Like have any of her albums downloaded, but if I hear them on the radio, they’re good Um, I think she’s a very talented musician, but she’s a smart lady. Yeah, she’s she’s very business savvy She’s  Todd: taking a spending a lot more time in Missouri than she used to she is She is here one of these days. Craig: Maybe she’s very polarizing here right now Todd: Yeah, like margin  Craig: hardcore Chiefs fans And I don’t know how they feel about it, but they should feel Let the girl watch some football. They should feel good about it because it’s getting them tons of exposure and publicity. Heck yeah. But anyway, it doesn’t surprise me that she would agree to something like this. She seems like a very cool person. Yeah. And I do. It’s a great song and it’s super cute to watch the kids, but of course, Dave is, is too cool. He’s too cool for that. Yeah. The, the kids want to sing it again. She’s like, no, I think we’ve heard enough of that for now. And they’re like, we’ll sing another song. And she’s like, no, but there’s somebody else on the bus who’s a professional singer and there’s a cute little. They talk about what it means to be a professional and stuff. And she asks Dave, because he had told her that he’s in this band, God’s Sledgehammer, which isn’t a Christian band, but he says it is because she’s a Christian. And she’s like, Dave can sing us a song. He’s like, no, no. But eventually he gets up and he carries around his electric guitar with him everywhere he goes. Yeah,  Todd: like a douche. Yeah, and a little mini amp so that he can play it. Yeah,  Craig: it’s ridiculous. So he plays like this. Punk metal song that he wrote, and it’s about being abandoned by his father, and his father never thought he was good enough. Which, the first time I watched the movie, I don’t even think that I paid any attention to the lyrics. The lyrics actually are kind of poignant, and, and significant later on. But he’s basically just screaming them. He’s a terrible musician. Yeah. And eventually she just tells him to stop. It’s like, I, I think that may be a little bit too much. But then, they get, so they, they arrive there. But then we cut. To that military facility. Oh God. And it’s just a couple of people, um, riding around on one of those, you know, I don’t know what those are. You see people, those huge tunnels driving those like miniature jeeps. There’s a guy and a girl both in military attire at Right. And they come upon. A zombie eating somebody and they’re like, Oh man, one of them got out again.  Todd: It’s look, I love the economy of this too. You might as well. We know what, what kind of movie this is going to be, you know, don’t bore us and try to make this feel like this, you know, all this tense stuff, like make it funny and just get to the point. Okay. They’re going to be zombies on the military facility. And I feel like the director is just winking at us like, all right. We know you know, so we’re just gonna make it funny and cut to the chase. Yeah, I love the premise that apparently this facility is down there because the American army is researching all of the dangerous Australian animals and plants and things. I don’t know, you know, what he’s kind of reading off of their catalog and stuff as he’s going down there. Boom. There you go. Boom. Right.  Craig: And it’s immediate, like, that one zombie kills one of those military guys, and then they hear over the radio, code red, code red, and they’re all out, and immediately, Night of the Living Dead style, like, logistically it doesn’t even really make sense. Like, yeah, these people presumably just died, but they’re already like, in disgusting, horrible zombie shape. They’re bloody, their faces are all decayed and ripped off and Cuz why not? It’s just, it’s just disgu Right, I mean they look, they look great. They’re great looking zombies. Mind you, this is all in broad daylight. The whole, well, most of the movie. And they immediately just start lumbering and they walk right past that sign that says Pleasant Valley Farms, 500 yards. Like…  Todd: But luckily these are the slow moving kind of zombies, so it takes a little while for them to get there. But  Craig: just a little while, I mean, they arrive at the putt putt. Courts, and these Asian tourists, I guess, think they’re part of the attraction?  Todd: Yeah, they were Chinese speaking Mandarin. I loved that little bit, because I could actually understand what they were  Craig: saying. I wondered, I, I, I, I don’t know, I don’t know Mandarin.  Todd: But that was weird, they introduced them, the one girl runs off, we see her again later in a scene, that woman. Yeah, the young woman. And then we never see her again, right?  Craig: That was kind of weird. Like, they made a point Did we ever see her face? I don’t think so. I feel like they made a point of showing us that she got away. Yeah. And then we just see her run past the screen one other time, then I don’t think we see her again. I don’t recall seeing her as a zombie. But, uh… Miss Caroline and Dave and the kids are on a train pulled by a farm tractor and, and Felix is, like, he loves tractors, he’s obsessed with tractors, and, uh, the, the guide, the, the woman who works there, who’s driving the tractor, she has to stop because they’re going through, uh, pastures of sheep, but they don’t see any sheep until they come across a zombie eating a sheep, but she doesn’t know what it is, so she goes out and she’s like, uh, sir, what are you doing? And he attacks her. So Miss Caroline goes down to see what’s going on and she sees that it’s zombies. And at that point Dave does too. So she, I love the, just right off the bat, immediately, she grabs a pitchfork and totally pitchforks this guy. Entirely through his torso like she’s not messing around. Todd: Yeah, she’s gonna keep those kids safe. Yes,  Craig: and that’s what I She doesn’t say it here, but she says it later and I think it’s appropriate to just That’s her job. And she says that outright. It is my job to keep these kids safe. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to do that.  Todd: That was cool. I also liked her dynamic with Dave. It’s very interesting because Dave clearly came on this trip because he is interested in her. And he’s a man on a rebound who’s going through a difficult thing. And so it feels a bit predatory, but also, you know. Maybe a bit odd, like you said, who wouldn’t be interested in her. Right. But he’s all there ready and willing to help and jumps in to help. But then there’s a moment where she’s holding her hand up and he notices a ring on her finger. And he’s like, are you married? And she’s like, no, engage. It’s like. Oh. And at that point, he seems very uninterested. Uh  Craig: huh. Dejected. He’s a  Todd: big baby! He is! He doesn’t want to be there now, you know? But at this moment, where she’s like, Get in there! You know, she’s yelling back at him. Start the tractor! Get the kids going! And he’s like, okay, he’s gotta spring into action, because he has no choice. He leaps into the front. He can’t even operate the tractor, but he’s coached through it by five year old Felix, who loves tractors.  Craig: Right, who teaches him how to drive. Like a stick. Yeah. It’s  Todd: so cute. It’s  Craig: adorable. And you know, just now saying he’s a big baby. I, I, he, he really is, but in thinking about it now, He’s able to rise. It makes sense for his character journey. Like, he really is kind of a big baby, like, he can’t take, he’s, he’s a narcissist. He, he’s really only concerned about himself. He, uh, is ungrateful to his sister and, and treats her badly, even though she’s got everything together and she’s always there to catch him when he falls. When, when his sister finally has had enough of him and says you have to get out, he cries, or pretends to cry, to get her to let him stay. Like he, and like, like here, when he finds out she has a girlfriend, he pouts like a big baby. He really is kind of a, a child. But over the course of the movie, and it’s funny because she has a surprising amount of patience. I, I get the feeling from the beginning that she does genuinely kind of like him. I mean, he, he’s nice to her, but, uh, there come points where he, uh, says something too much. Like there’s a, he gets into a spat with the, the heavy kid, Max, and she has to scold him. So she does have her limits, but I like their dynamic too. And she. Probably just because she’s resourceful and knows… Dave’s the only other grown up in the room right now. So, she needs his help, and she has to rely on him too. And she does, and they work together. Well,  Todd: and also, she’s a really good teacher, she knows how to deal with kids, so she should be able to deal with him pretty well, too, right? Like she has the same level of patience, ultimately, that she has with the kids, she just extends to him, because he is sort of like, it’s better for him to kind of treat him like a kid. True. It all tracks, it’s really good. Well, one thing that we need to go back and mention is this child’s entertainer, Teddy McGiggle. Oh, right. So, there’s, uh, we see early on that, uh, one of Felix’s shows that he likes to watch and apparently all the kids are into is this children’s entertainer who has a TV show called Teddy McGiggle and he has a little frog puppet that he talks to and does a silly dance and he’s, you know, just your entertainer that talks to kids like Giddilywinks! Craig: Hi ho, Teddy! Hi ho, Frogsy! Well, aren’t we having a super fun time on our trip down under? We’ve swam with the fish in the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve climbed to the top of the Harbor Bridge, and today, TODAY, we are visiting the Pleasant Valley Farm to meet and learn about all the cute Australian animals. I wanna cuddle some koalas! I bet you do, Frogsy! Woo  Todd: wee! And he’s American, but he’s, uh, in Australia on one of his world tours with his big red van. Yeah. And so when they show up, he happens to be at this, uh, petting zoo, and they do a little performance out in front. You can see the TV cameras are there catching it and all that. And then he kind of, you know, wanders off. Yeah. Once all this stuff goes down with the zombies, they’re going away, like you said, on the tractor. She gets back  Craig: on. She does get back on. I wanted to mention real quick, like, you and I have both… worked in education. You specifically have worked very closely with kindergartners. Yeah, this woman’s classroom management skills are like top notch. She has the most incredible classroom management skills. And the reason I mentioned that we both have been in education is it. It reads genuine. It does. I believe this. This is very genuine. This woman, she knows How to keep these children calm. She, she cannot lose her cool. She has to keep her cool all the time and she has to keep a level of normalcy. Yes. She has to keep them focused and keep it normal. And she does. And I love it. Like. There’s zombies all around and the kids are kind of getting scared. Okay. Give me eyes on me. Who remembers how to play tag? Good. Well, those funny looking people out there are it. How to let the funny people touch us. Kongka! Kongka? Conga line, and just directs them quickly through this maze of zombies, and as silly as that sounds, and ultimately as silly as it is, I just loved it. I, I, I just thought it was the cutest, most clever thing, and these kids are adorable, and they’re such good actors too, like, they seem like real Kids.  Todd: Yeah. Well, and I think it works like you said, not just because of her, but also because of the way the kids respond. The kids are great in this movie. They got great performances out of them. As I was saying earlier, they screen like 700 kids. And he said he was very interested in getting kids who were five. They weren’t going to get six or seven year olds and try to cheat it. He’s like, nobody buys that. And also, you’re just not going to get it. the same reactions as you are from kids who are that age. So it’s really important. So they go through the screening process and they get these kids and he’s like, you know, we, we put them through the paces and we, you could tell like which ones couldn’t focus and which ones would zone out after a while and you know, they got dropped. But when you’re working with kids, you only get four or five hours a day and you’ve got to have breaks and all these things. And he said that when they were shooting, they, they realized that the, between nine and 10 a. m. was sort of like the magic hour for these kids. That was where they had just had breakfast and it was morning time and they still had a lot of energy where they could keep them focused and really get good performances. So they basically scheduled most of what they needed out of these kids to happen in that one hour span. Wow. Of every day of shooting. Crazy, right? That’s  Craig: hard to believe because there’s so much in it, you know, like. Yeah, right? It’s not like they can just put them somewhere and Go do things. One of the grownups has to be with them all the time, so those kids are present most of the time, but yeah, first they try to go back to their bus, but they see the bus driver getting eaten and he says they’re in the bus. Go back. So they go back to, um, the gift shop slash visitor center, but it’s locked and Teddy McGiggles is locked in there and reveals himself to just be. Top notch asshole. Like, he could not care less about them. He couldn’t care less that they are children. He only, he is safe in there by himself, and that’s… Todd: Well, you know, I saw this coming a mile away because it’s that kind of  Craig: movie. Oh, sure. I mean, he was douchey from the beginning. Like, as soon as he laid eyes on Miss Caroline when all the kids were gathered around, he, like, called her up and was, had his hands on her and, like, he was clearly, you know, putting the moves on her. It was gross.  Todd: Well, it’s also pretty typical for these kind of comedies, and I think this might be where some of the critic, I didn’t actually read any of the criticism. I’m just, uh, trying to imagine and I’m also, you know, thinking about the movie, try as objectively as possible. As much as I enjoyed it, these are pretty standard tropes, you know, like we said, the, the Judd AAU big kid who has to grow up, okay. He meets a woman who initially, you know, they’re. Sparring or it doesn’t seem like it seems like they’re unlikely pair then they develop a relationship and they have their moments It’s almost beat by beat sort of screenplay writing 101 and this same thing this guy who you saw as this Wonderful child’s entertainer that all the kids are love. I knew was gonna turn out to be the biggest asshole of all of them It’s just Standard for these comedies. So I did feel like these things were a bit predictable. That’s fine because it was still a fun movie and We we sometimes watch the same stories over and over again and we still like them But if I were to have you know Some criticism for this movie and maybe why some people connected with it and some people just absolutely turned it off Is because of that. Yeah, I  Craig: don’t know either. You know what I mean? I mean, I I do I mean when you say it like when you say it that way I get it. I, I never felt that way. I never felt like it was stale. And, and I, I don’t know if that is a result of any one thing or a combination of things. The, the, the performances that I think are so good. Todd: I thought that, I thought the plot was a little stale. I, I thought that the, the whole, like I said, it’s so close to, say, Cooties or… Anna and the Apocalypse, or Scout’s Guide to the And not just because it’s younger people who have to deal with zombies, but it was almost like it kind of hit the same beats. You always know in a movie like this, there’s gonna be this point where everybody’s asleep and there’s no threat, and so that gives the male character and the female character time to spill their guts out to each other, and then find out that, you know, Hey, he really isn’t such a bad guy after all. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like there’s actually that moment in here. Yeah, and I saw it coming from a mile away too. And sure, I’ve got to say I was a little disappointed by that, but it’s fine. I, I expected it and I got it. So,  Craig: well, yeah, I mean, they, they get in the kids for the kids. They find a way, by the way, these zombies are. A threat if they get a hold of you, but if I had a choice of running through a horde of zombies or not, I would choose not to, but if you had to, as long as you’re on your toes, you’re right, if you’re on your toes, you’ve got a pretty good chance. They’re also… Mindless, it seems. Because they can’t, like, figure out how to climb things. Right.  Todd: Or open doors, or smash Even smash through windows, they’re not doing that.  Craig: Right, right. Um, so any obstacle in their way is good for you. Um, so the kids crawl through this little hole in the ground into like a play area, and the zombies can’t figure that out, so they’re okay. Uh, Dave goes in through the ceiling, and he and Teddy mcg, mcg giggles. Teddy mcg giggles, they fight and he’s just so crass, like mcg giggles is just so crass. Everything he says is disgusting, and they get in a fight. And eventually, uh, Dave grabs mcg giggles by the balls and squeezes and mcg giggles, like projectile vomits But he beats him up. Uh, or Dave beats me giggles up, and then he, he gets. He takes blows too, but he, then the kids are in there and at first McGiggles is being crazy, talking about how they’re all going to die because they’re still trying to keep the kids under the illusion that this is all a game. And McGiggles is like, it’s not a game. We’re all going to die, blah, blah, blah. And he’s, he’s freaking, he’s scaring the kids. So she goes over to him. I loved this moment. She pretends that she’s hugging him, but really she Like, was it like a broken statue or something? Yeah. Mm hmm. She digs it into his side, and she’s really digging it in. Like, he’s crying, and this is when she said, It is my job to take care of these kids, and I will do whatever I have to do. And I just, I liked seeing that kind of badass moment. Not that she hasn’t already been a badass, she has. But she’s so even keeled for the kids. Even in this moment, they don’t know what’s going on. They think she’s just giving him a hug. But she gets him to say, it’s a game. And then, uh, everything calms down for a little while. While Miss Caroline and McGiggles are fighting, Dave gives the kids all five. food and Felix says, is this okay, Uncle Dave? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, it’s fine. It’s just chips. It’s just chips. But it’s been established that he has. severe allergies to everything. So, as soon as, uh, that fight between Lupita Nyong’o and Jess Gadd is over, we hear him struggling to breathe, and you kind of see him scratching, uh, at his throat. Of course they know he’s got severe allergies, so she had an EpiPen, but… A zombie stole her fanny pack, and that’s where it was. But Dave has one too, um, and Tess, uh, Felix’s mom, had shown Dave how to do it, but of course, he’s an idiot, and he does it wrong, and he injects it into himself, and, you know, once you’ve done that, that’s done. It’s not like you can just reuse them. So he says, there’s another one, there’s a spare in his backpack, but his backpack is on that train. They, all the kids left their backpack. And Dave says, I’ll go get it. But Felix says, no, don’t leave me. And, gosh, it’s so sad. The dad in me  Todd: really, really felt this bit, actually. I mean, it’s such a small bit, but I, that, that hit me. I hit me hard. Because I’m thinking, what would I do in this situation, you know? And I’m like, yeah,  Craig: I… Well, and Lupita Nyong’o… Just jumps into action. She sees this. She sees him say don’t leave and she says I’ll do it. Um, and she by God she  Todd: does Yep Gets that and brings it back. Yeah  Craig: comes back I mean she she has to fight through a bunch of zombies on the way there and we get to watch that and she fights Them with a shovel and she ends up like hacking several of their heads off with a shovel like she’s just a total badass. She gets to the train, um, it’s cutting back to Felix almost dying and he does not look good. And Dave, of course, is just horrified and wracked with guilt, of course as you would be. And, uh, then, when she gets, she finally, when she gets to the train, all the kids backpacks are identical, so she has to go through all of them, and then she turns around to head back, and it is just an even bigger horde of zombies, and all you see is she takes a deep breath and starts marching towards them, and then it, and then it cuts back to the kids, and she comes Uh, storming back in. Drops  Todd: through the ceiling. Just, like, lands on her feet like a total stud, covered in blood.  Craig: Just covered in blood. Like, she has just been through a slaughter out there. And she says, oh, they’re like, what’s on your dress? She’s like, oh, uh, I got caught in a jam fight. It’s strawberry jam, don’t taste it. So funny. Funny and she gives Felix the injection and he can breathe and he says, thank you. Miss Caroline, and she says it’s my job Yeah, and then like Dave looks at her this woman Who has just saved his nephew’s life and not only that saved him from the predicament that Dave put him in Yeah, and he is just In love. Absolutely in love. That may, gosh, I don’t remember where the times I cried. you cried? You  Todd: said you put it down in your notes, come on, be  Craig: honest. Well, we must not have gotten  Todd: there yet. Well, Teddy hears a helicopter, he climbs up on the roof to wave it down, but he ends up falling off, and they’re, and, you know, because he would let them in, and the teacher is very reluctant to let him in, and I love this line, he yells in the door, he goes, You’re being a bad teacher! F k your teaching method!  Craig: Ha ha ha ha ha!  Todd: Oh god. But you know, Dave goes out there and rescues him, pulls him up onto the roof. And then he has his little confession moment, which was so funny. I laughed so hard. And basically he’s just like, Ha ha ha, he’s just admitting, That he hates kids, and he doesn’t enjoy the job, and he was, uh, trained by Al Pacino, uh, as an actor, and he’s doing this shit. And he says the only thing that gets me through it is f ing their moms. Yeah. It was, it was ridiculous, right? Like… Utterly ridiculous. Maybe a little too over the top. But at the very end, he says, And you know what? Teddy McGiggle isn’t even my real name. It’s Kevin.  Craig: Or whatever, something  Todd: weird. That line was genius, I’m sorry. And he’s  Craig: like, I don’t, I don’t remember what he said. It’s, he’s like, it’s, it’s Stephen. And Dave goes, Stephen McGiggle? Stephen Schwartz! Like, I don’t remember what it was, but something like that. Something like that. Yeah, that part wasn’t my favorite part. No. It was dumb. I think Josh Gad is a really, really funny guy. Um, and a lot of that felt improvised. Yeah. I imagine the director probably said, Here’s the direction. I want you to take it. Take these  Todd: concepts and do it. Yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s just silly for the point of being silly. It’s  Craig: become very unreal. And at one point, he goes, What’s that terrible smell? Oh, God. It was, I, I can’t lie. It was me. I shit my pants. I was gonna try to blame it on you. Oh, God. It’s crazy. Okay, so, um, we find out that the army has plans to drop a bomb on the visitor center in the morning. But now it’s nighttime, and Caroline sings to these kids. The sweetest song. Well, I’d like to visit the moon On a rocket ship high in the air Yes, I’d like to visit the moon But I don’t think I’d like to live there Though I would miss all the places and people I love. So, though I may like it I don’t want to live on the moon. It’s adorable. It’s a beautiful little lullaby. They finally get the kids to go. to sleep. Isn’t this when Dave and Felix have a cute little moment with Felix’s girlfriend?  Todd: Dave and Felix? And Felix’s girlfriend? Oh, I don’t remember that.  Craig: Yeah, I, I, No, it’s not quite there yet. We see that all of the parents of the missing kids are gathered, but the army is keeping them out. And there’s hilarious dialogue where the army guys are like, What’s going on this time? Ugh, it’s zombies again. Slow ones or fast ones? Slow ones. Oh, well, that’s good. Okay. Well, shoot anything that moves.  Todd: They stand around their table and they slap down and unroll a map and it’s just the like cartoony visitors map of the petting zoo instead of like, you know, satellite map or something like that is what they’re using to plan their invasion. I mean, it’s so corny and and that’s Kind of nice. I mean, again, it’s like the filmmakers winking at you. Like, yeah, you know, what’s going on. The army’s coming in. They’re going to become a threat too. They’re going to want to bomb the place. So let’s just, let’s just have some fun with that. But I  Craig: just think that it’s also funny because in these zombie movies, it’s always at the end, you know, at the very end, the army comes in and like gets things under control and this movie treats. It like, well, that just happens sometimes like, that’s just, that’s, I mean, that’s part of the job for the army is cleaning up zombie  Todd: outbreaks.  Craig: Oh God. Uh, Tess, Dave’s sister tries to call her and leaves a tearful message and says, you know, please just tell Felix, I love him. And oh my God, it’s so cute and sad. This  Todd: is like, again, it’s so typical Tess and Dave have their moments. So now, you know, we get this. point where Dave can tell his sister suddenly how much he appreciates all that she’s done for him. And I was kind of rolling  Craig: my eyes at that. Well, that’s later. They don’t, they, he does call her or she gets through to him later. You’re right. That’s later. All the kids are going to sleep, but Felix’s little girlfriend, Beth, is scared. And so Felix says, my mom says a rhyme to me when I’m scared. And it’s this cute little rhyme about little monsters go away. But Dave. Um, busts in and says it with them. And at the end, Felix is like, How did you know that rhyme? And he said, Your mom used to say it to me too. That’s back when I was Boo Boo. Boo Boo was what the sister called him. So, the, all the kids go to sleep. And then, Dave and… Aubrey, which he finally calls her. He’s been calling her Miss Caroline all along and she keeps saying, you’ve really got to call me Aubrey. He finally calls her Aubrey and apologizes for, you know, all of his bad behavior, but then they have a heart to heart and you’re right. Like this, like I said before, it’s an exposition dump, but I don’t. Mind it, because it feels so heartfelt and it’s sweet and funny. Basically, his story is he didn’t want to have kids with his ex. He admits that, you know, they broke up and she immediately got with another guy. But it was really his fault because he couldn’t commit and she wanted kids and he didn’t. And it’s because he’s scared he’d be like his dad. His dad left them, totally abandoned them for another family, which caused his mom to… Um, and, and she was hospitalised through all of their childhood, and so his sister had raised him, and he wasn’t even, uh, you know, grateful for her. And like, yes, it’s a little bit trite, but… It’s so it’s played so genuinely that I don’t mind and then she tells her story. She’s like, you know, I wasn’t always The perfect teacher and and she talks about how she was kind of a wild child and at 18 She ran away from home to follow a band. She followed them to Australia and Until she ran out of money and when she ran out of money she broke into One of their hotel rooms, and she said, I would have let them do anything to me. He goes, what happened? And she said, as soon as Taylor came in the room, they called Zachariah or something. And he goes, Taylor Swift? And she says, no, Taylor Hanson. The band that she had been following was Hanson. The band that she was willing to let do anything to her was Hanson. That’s hilarious. And he’s like, wait, like, mm, bop? And she’s like, mm hmm. MmmmmmBAMM. Ahahahahahaha. Todd: Well, big surprise too here, right? She’s not actually engaged. I saw that coming a mile away as well. Oh,  Craig: obviously. Well, I mean, she’s a smart girl. She knows what’s going on. We, you know, all those dads are hitting on her. Yes, throw a ring on that finger. Maybe it’ll deflect some of them. Mm. Not all of them, I’m sure not all of ’em , um, right. But anyway, she fell into teaching ’cause she was broke. So she took a job as a teaching aide and she fell in love with it. And now it’s like her life calling or whatever. Yep. Um, and he offers to stay awake and, and, and keep watch. And that scared me to death ’cause I thought he was gonna screw up again. But he doesn’t, he just wakes them up in the morning and they’ve, he’s got a plan they gotta get out of there. His plan is to go to the train, but when they talk to McGiggles about it, McGiggles is like, I’ve got this great van and it’s got a hatch in the top for my puppet so we can drive it up and get the kids in there. Yeah. And they’re like, oh, that’s actually a pretty good idea. So McGiggles and Dave both go to the van. I’m trying to hurry because this isn’t all that exciting. Um, I mean, it is in the movie because they have to traverse the… Zombies and all that. Well,  Todd: uh, there is a bit here. And this is, you know, again, a little bit of criticism for the movie was the pacing. The movie slows down quite a few times. And the zombie threat is not ever present. It seems like they could stay locked in that room forever. Like as long as they had food and drink. But they don’t. They ate up all the chips. But like, they’re not fending off zombies left and right. They’re suddenly not like, somebody breaks in the back door or whatever. And I felt like I was a little, ugh, is, are we gonna move the plot forward? They don’t know that the army is gonna be bombing them. Right. So they don’t have that urgency. Uh, I felt like the movie could have used a little bit of urgency, you know, at this point. In any case, they gotta get the kids out, cause there’s no food, and uh, as they’re running away, Teddy is like, scared out of his mind and freaking out, until he comes across the playground, which is where the kid zombies were. And suddenly, he has a new lease on his zombie taken out life, and starts brutally taking out these kid zombies. And this movie is not afraid to cross lines. No. I kind of like that about it, that the kids are zombies, and he is killing them. Ha Yeah. And, and each time he’s like, I f ed your mom, and I f ed your mom! I, I thought that was… Funny, even though it was really silly. And also, I was really impressed they were willing to go there and take out the kids.  Craig: Yeah, there are kid zombies throughout. Yeah. I like that, too. Well, anyway, they get to the van, but Teddy betrays them and locks the door, and so Dave can’t get in, but then… His sock  Todd: puppet, Froggy, is a zombie  Craig: now? Yeah, that was hilarious. Like, you see the puppet come out from the back, and then he gets killed. Dave climbs up on top of the van, which the zombies can’t figure out, so he’s up there. He talks to his sister on the phone, apologizes to her, yeah. And then he ends up dropping his phone. Then there’s a sequence where the kids all of a sudden are like, Where’s Felix? And he’s gone. And you see him running around outside in his… Darth Vader outfit and like fake lightsaber fighting with the zombies and stuff and pew pew like the video game Yeah, yeah, there was never a question in my mind of whether or not they would kill this kid I knew that they would not oh, of course, but if this still made me very nervous Mm hmm because he’s just running through them. He doesn’t know the stakes. They’ve told them that it’s a game Mm hmm, so he doesn’t know the danger and he finds this little lamb that we’ve seen before But he gets cornered in the lamb’s pen. Now, um, does FelixJediMind trick that gate?  Todd: I guess, yeah, that’s the only explanation for this. The only other way you could explain it, although I was looking for it and I didn’t see it, is that the zombies, as they’re piling against the gate, sort of end up closing it themselves. Right. But it sure looks like he’s used his force powers to close the gate.  Craig: It really looks like  Todd: it. And then the next scene we see, he’s not there anymore. I thought he was going to be trapped or  Craig: something. I did too. But no, he actually comes to the rescue. The next time we see him, he is coming, um, he’s driving the tractor, pulling the train, coming to rescue his uncle. And it’s hilarious, because he doesn’t know how to drive, so he’s like running over stuff and going, Oops! Like, it’s, it’s, It’s really cute and really funny, and, uh, he picks up Dave, and Dave gets on and he says, See, I told you you were the bravest kid I knew. And that was before. Before Dave left to go try to get the van, the kid is like, But you’ll be back, right? And he says something like, You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met. And I was crying.  Todd: Well, now that I think about it, that’s probably what gave him the… The impetus to run out on his own in, uh, Darth Vader costume. So in a way, he kind of put him in danger. Yeah,  Craig: it was really sweet. Anyway, so they pick up all the kids, they get them all on the… Train and they because these are slow walking zombies like the tractor doesn’t even go fast like that tractor could go faster than that It could but they’re just going like two miles an hour and the whole horde of zombies is just following them But miss Caroline is playing the ukulele for the kids and when she’s and they’re singing along but anytime a song ends the zombies like And somebody says it’s the music And so every she’s playing  Todd: these songs! This was so silly, this bit. It  Craig: really was! Um, and the She plays, if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, and the kids and the zombies clap. And, and it is, it’s really silly, it’s kind of funny. It’s  Todd: kind of funny, I think you could have cut this whole bit out, I would have been just fine with it, honestly. Oh, you  Craig: could, yeah, it’s fine, I mean, they’re getting away, they’re, they’re coming towards the army. First, the army just sees Miss Caroline and Dave, and they’re just gonna kill them. They’re like, they could be infected, just, you know, take them out. Because this is  Todd: a standard military procedure for zombies anyway. Right.  Craig: And then they’re like, wait, do you hear that? It’s singing. And they’re like, who’s singing? And they’re like, wait, it’s kids. And the major, whoever’s in charge, like, kids, Ugh, I can’t shoot kids. Not again. Todd: So they don’t shoot the kids. They all catch up, and all the kids stream off. In the meantime… Uh, Dave is super excited, he’s telling the military, he says, It’s the music, the music, just sing to them, you can control them. And they just break out their guns and mow these guys down. Mow them right in front of all the children. Yeah. That bit  Craig: was hilarious. And then you see stealth bombers fly overhead, and an atomic bomb, not really, but a huge bomb goes off at the camp, and there’s like a mushroom cloud and everything, and Miss Caroline’s like, look, kids fireworks. Uh huh. Then guys in hazmat suits start grabbing the kids and throwing them in the back of a paddy wagon. Audrey  Todd: kisses him, you know? You knew that was coming. Oh,  Craig: right, they kiss in front of the mushroom cloud. Yeah. That was, yeah, she kisses him, and, and like, I don’t remember if she pulls away, I think she pulls away and says, I’m sorry, and then he kisses her. Yeah. It’s really, like. Typical. This is obvious, right, that’s obviously where it was going, but at this point, I don’t know Todd, I was just so into it, like I loved it, I, through this whole thing, I was laughing, I was crying, I was so, I was nervous, even though, if they had, you know, you said that this movie isn’t Afraid to like cross lines and I agree they do kill children. There are lots of children zombies You do see those zombie kids brutalized by Josh Gad But if they had killed any one of these kids in this class, I would have been out like now Yeah, never mind. Don’t like it. So I’m glad that they were sensible In that way, and it was silly, it was cute, but anyway, at the end, so then it cuts back to the military facility, and it’s all of the parents, and the major comes in, and was like, they’re like, where are our kids? He’s like, all of the class is safe, uh, we just have to keep them in quarantine, and they’re like, but wait, how could that be? And he’s like, well, it’s a miracle, it was their teachers kept them safe. They’re like, teachers? They only have one teacher, and he’s like, no, there’s Miss Caroline, and there’s, Dave. And Tess is like, that’s my brother. And he’s like, it’s unprecedented. Nobody has ever survived one of these things. And the, the parents are like, well, they must be so scared. And he’s like, come with me. And he takes them to like this huge, enormous room. That’s dark, but in the center of it, there’s a clear plastic tent, and all of the kids are sit and Dave and Ms. Carolina are in there, and all of the kids are sitting around, and Dave is playing the ukulele, and they’re all singing Shake It Off together. Yeah. And it’s so… cute and then like all the parents are sitting there watching and it does a close up on Tess and you just see the Tears running down her face and I’m crying too. Like it was so sweet It was so sweet and I cried. I I didn’t cry. It  Todd: was so cute! No, I admit that it’s cute and I think you know this movie isn’t gonna be for everybody because maybe even many of our listeners don’t have the patience for a a super cute movie like this. It’s trying to be cute. It actually works. But it’s also, like I said, very paint by numbers as far as the plot goes. It’s very simple. You don’t ever really feel that the kids are in real peril. And a lot of it sounds kind of written and silly, you know, because it’s just a silly comedy. And so you don’t really take any of it seriously. Look, that’s not a criticism. That’s the point of the movie. It’s just that kind of movie. But if you go into this, not expecting that, if you think it’s, you’re going to feel danger and you know, it’s, it’s going to be realistic. Uh, it’s not, it’s a bit of a parody, but it’s got a lot of heart to it as well. And, and emotional depth that I was not expecting, honestly. Yeah, I liked it too. And I would recommend it to.  Craig: Yeah, I, I would too. And Alan really liked it. Like, he really liked this movie. And that very rarely happens, uh, with horror. So, I’ve been trying to get

Happy Halloween! Not to be confused with the Wayans’ horror-comedy of the same name, our Patrons chose the obscure 1991 independent film, Scary Movie, for us to review on this special day. This fascinating movie was a labor of love for 19 year-old writer-director Daniel Erickson, who seemed to bring together the entire acting community of Austin, Texas, to fulfill a piece of his vision. Starring a fresh-faced John Hawkes, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster) and a supporting cast of nobodies, the film has a lot of grit and heart, but ultimately…well, we thought it was a bit of a slog, despite the shock ending. Still, Halloween spirit abounds. If you’ve ever enjoyed a haunted attraction in rural America during this time of year, this will at the very least transport you right back to that place. Happy Halloween, everyone! Stay safe out there. scary movie poster [https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/scary-movie-poster.jpg?resize=740%2C1024&ssl=1]https://i0.wp.com/chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/scary-movie-poster.jpg?ssl=1 Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript Scary Movie (1991) Episode 266, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. Craig: And I’m Craig. Todd: And here we are, Craig, at Halloween, finally! This was one of those great months where, uh, we got to squeeze five in instead of four. I  Craig: know, but, it’s weird, like, this is a long Halloween month and I still feel like it’s snuck up on me. Like, I feel like I haven’t done enough fun things. I haven’t even watched Hocus Pocus once.  Todd: What? What? No, that is unbelievable. I thought that was your Halloween tradition. It totally is. I thought that was like, you know,  Craig: September 30th. Nah, we’ll get it in. You still got  Todd: time. Yeah. You have hours. You can do it. Yeah. We’ll cut this short. We might have to anyway. Oh boy. So, uh, as you might remember from our last episode, we decided for the last two weeks of this month that we would put it to our patrons, uh, to decide which among about a half dozen or so, um, movies that we had isolated from our long list, which ones they would like us to do. And this movie had been recently recommended a couple times and, uh, I was Kind of happy that it got picked because I had seen it on some lists of Halloween horror movies that you need to check out And I knew I had never seen it before. It is 1991’s Scary movie, not to be confused with the 2000 or 2001 film, Scary Movie, with the Weyand Brothers. Right. Which is a comedy. This is not a comedy. This is like a decade, about a decade before, and… It’s not? It’s not a  Craig: comedy? What is it that I don’t get it. I know,  Todd: right? Fair enough. It’s almost an unintentional comedy. Actually, I think there’s probably some There’s quite a bit of intentional comedy in here, but the whole movie So there’s a reason why we haven’t seen it before. This movie has languished in obscurity because it turns out it was a 19 year old’s film. Is  Craig: that true? Yeah. A 19 year old kid made it?  Todd: Fine. Nineteen year old adult. I think you’re technically an adult after you, uh, No, you’re a kid. you’re nineteen. You turn eighteen, right?  Craig: I don’t, you know, legally, shmeagly, you’re a child when you’re nineteen  Todd: years old. Daniel Erickson. Does that explain some things, though? Does that give you a different take on  Craig: the movie? I guess. I honestly didn’t know that until you just said it, and… It tracks. Like… Yeah. It looks like something a 19 year old would throw together.  Todd: You remember what the other movie we saw that this was giving me vibes of, except I liked the other movie a lot more. Is it Don’t Go in the Woods? There’s Nothing Out There… Oh God. Oh god, no. It  Craig: was so, it, there, it was like a little glowing alien and lots of throwing cats. Is that what you’re, is that the movie you’re talking about?  Todd: Yeah, it was also done by like an 18 or 19 year old guy with a script he wrote when he was 16. But his parents were editors. Is that the  Craig: one that they say that like, scream? Stole from it, like  Todd: Yeah. It got meta, where, you know, there were moments in there where they were talking about Like, there was a character in there that talked about scary movies. They broke the fourth wall, yeah. Yeah, there were weird things where they would jump up and swing from the boom mic to get away from the alien and stuff. I had seen that movie before we watched it, and I really thought it was charming, even though it’s not a good It’s not a great movie, it just has a lot of heart. And especially when you hear the story behind it, it’s like, oh yeah, that, that was pretty fun. Like, you could just imagine yourself with your buddies, gathering up the resources to shoot a movie over a couple weeks. I mean, I’ve done that myself.  Craig: Right. It was dumb too. Like, it was dumb too, but it was goofy and funny and fun and Yeah, like honest to God. I watched this movie 24 hours ago. I don’t remember anything about it. It is terrible like I have a page full of notes. They make no sense to me. I have no Boy like I had never heard of it You know, I didn’t one of the options for our vote was Halloween for and I was all I wanted to do Halloween 4. I was all excited about it. My friend  Todd: Paul Rudd is in it. You were really sure that they would. I know. It was close. Yeah,  Craig: it was close.  Todd: We have to honor the votes. Yeah, no recounting on this one. I know. Don’t storm the Capitol on this vote. And  Craig: so whatever. I had never heard of it, but I’m like, okay, fine. Give it a shot. We do like old movies. You know, I think uh, what the truth is, is that our patrons Like when we do terrible movies because sometimes those end up being really fun episodes and I don’t disagree They do sometimes end up being really fun episodes, but oh my god, you’re not paying us enough Like we’re gonna have to like bump up the premium or something because Movie, I swear took a year off  Todd: my life. I finished the movie And I got online immediately to text you just to see that you had texted me about an hour before that saying that you were in the middle of watching it. Yeah, you were like, this movie is horrible. And I was like, yeah, this may go down as this is a strong contender for one of the worst movies we’ve ever seen. That being said, we have not. We’ve seen some dreck. We still have avoided the dreck of the  Craig: dreck. Oh, yeah, there’s way worse, I guess. There’s  Todd: worse, you know, there’s shot to video garbage out there. There’s so much garbage out there that we haven’t even touched with a 10 foot pole. That’s true. It would certainly rank well above this on the scale of worst movies of all time. So, it’s, it’s not entirely fair to trash this movie and say it’s the worst thing we’ve ever seen. So far, as far as I’m concerned, that still goes to… The Within the Woods movie, because that movie, that movie was so incompetent and so loony and the acting was horrible. The acting in this movie, by comparison, is several notches above.  Craig: I’m not sure that I agree that it was worse than this movie, but I will agree that it was a bad movie. But again, it was still kind of fun to watch, because it was… Such a mess. Yeah, and so silly this movie isn’t even fun to watch like out of the gate I’m telling y’all skip it like it is a waste of your time Those terrible movies, especially like, you know, the really really cheap stuff that gets made today with attractive actors with no talent at all You know, I I accidentally put one of those on every once in a while and I can tell within the first five or ten Minutes. No, this is Awful. I’m not going to sit through this. That’s how I felt with this movie. I swear to God, without a doubt, I would have turned it off if we weren’t watching it for this. I would have turned it off and never looked back and I wish that I had had that  Todd: opportunity. But we are dedicated to the craft. I  Craig: know, I know. So I had to like rage watch it now. Uh, it was, it was disappointing. I don’t know. Like I, I, I try to find something, something nice to say, and I just can’t think of anything in this movie. It’s, it’s boring. The story is really stupid. Nothing happens. At the end, spoiler alert, I won’t say exactly, but you find out that Nothing really did happen. Nothing really did! Nothing  Todd: happened! This is one of those times when you say nothing happens and it’s the absolute truth. I have to say, after reading about And I had this feeling, I was like, this movie comes across as some very inexperienced person’s labor of love. Like the whole community got together to help out some poor schlub who, gosh darn it, wanted to make a movie. I saw that in the very, what, there are two trivia things on IMDB? And one thing says that the mayor of Austin, Texas, in 1991 when this premiered, In one theater, which I think is all it ever premiered in, declared that day as Scary Movie Day because of the boon to the Austin film community that this movie was. And I have to admit I have to admit The economy. Yeah, I mean, it employed people. Right. You know, the movie was shot on film. You know, it’s, it’s One of the things I noticed immediately was it’s 16 millimeter. You know, cause it’s a square screen, it’s pretty grainy. I was like, alright, definite. Old school, 60mm, independent film vibes. Lots of people in this movie, almost none of whom are experienced actors. And then, the people who are experienced actors, or have at least some promise, are not doing very well. They’re quite early in their career, in this movie. We’ll get to that in a second. Yeah, okay. And then, it just comes across as, I think there are ideas here. Like, On paper, I think the script looked intriguing. And I think that got everybody on board. And if you were to pitch this movie and this idea to someone, it would be very intriguing. And it would be a bit unique. The twist is pretty unique. I think the movie had a lot of potential, and I think that there is the… There is some style behind it. This is why I rank it better than Don’t Go Into The Woods. I thought Don’t Go Into The Woods was just sloppy. It was a mess of a movie. It wasn’t shot in a compelling way. It had no style. This is really going for style. Like, there are shots in here where if you froze the frame and you looked at it, you’re like, oh, that’s nice. Like, the lighting is good and there’s smoke where it needs to be and there’s good composition here and  Craig: Oh my god, there’s smoke where it needs to be? You mean everywhere? Like, they just had a fog  Todd: machine on. I mean, other times you’d freeze the frame and you’d just see white smoke. You’re  Craig: being far too kind. I thought this cinematography was pedestrian at best. Like, I didn’t think that there was anything compelling going on there. It  Todd: was pedestrian, but it had its moments, and my point is, somebody was trying. They were failing, but I could see that somebody was trying, and probably learned a lot along the way. I mean, sure. You know what  Craig: I’m saying? Yeah, I mean, if one of my high school kids made me this, like, made this movie, and showed it to me, I’d be like, damn,  Todd: good job! Like… Right? Wait, good for you!  Craig: But…  Todd: And that’s… That’s basically what it was. I  Craig: guess. I guess. And if we’re gonna, if that’s the standard by which we’re gonna judge it, great. Good job,  Todd: kid. Yeah, that out of the way. Yeah, that out of the way. Objectively speaking, it is. It is mind numbingly boring.  Craig: I mean, I have no idea who funded this movie, but you should’ve, like, you should know when the very, very first thing that you see is the credits and it says, generic movies. That’s the name of the production company, like, I should’ve known. I should’ve  Todd: just turned it off. You know what though? I think this movie is trying really hard to be clever. I think that’s intentional. I mean, generic movies is, they’re trying to say, I mean, then the title card, Scary Movie, comes up and has a barcode underneath it. What the f was that about? I think they’re trying to be cute, like, like horror movies are just a dime a dozen, they’re a product, they’re a commodity, and here we’re, we’re throwing another generic horror movie at you. I, I think that’s what… They’re trying to say  Craig: and then were they gonna like try to like Just kidding. Yeah Because they didn’t like I don’t know you’re right I get it. I understand what you’re saying when you say like the script on paper It’s a semi clever idea, but it’s a one trick pony and it goes on for far too long Yeah, the movie is only an hour and 20 minutes long and it feels like it took me A week to get through it. I  Todd: know! But, I get it, like, Me too. I was watching, I was checking my watch ten minutes in.  Craig: I don’t even, I don’t know even how to go about, you said, we’ll talk about this later, you said, you know, these people were all like, you know, nobodies or earlier in their career. The, the guy, I don’t even have it in front of me, the guy who played the main kid, Warren, um, his name’s John Hawks, he’s been in, Everything! Like, I don’t recognize him, really, from anything, but I looked at his IMDB and he just has dozens and dozens, I don’t know how many credits, a lot, um, and  Todd: he’s He’s an Academy Award nominee. For what? Winter’s I think Winter’s Bone? Yeah. I’m not I’m not positive. It was for something. I mean, he has been in 142 things, including  Craig: Something we did, something we reviewed. Todd: Oh yeah, several things we’ve reviewed. Uh, the new Marvel thing, Marvel Wastelanders, Doom, I don’t know, it’s some kind of podcast series. He’s in that right now. But yeah, no, From Dusk Till Dawn he was in, we haven’t reviewed that yet.  Craig: Identity? Is that with that? Mmhmm. At the motel. I think he was like, like the guy behind the desk at the motel. Mm hmm. That’s right. That’s the only thing that I recognize him from, but he’s been in a ton of stuff. He’s terrible in this movie.  Todd: Rush Hour. I still know what you did last summer. You know, talking horror. From Dusk Till Dawn. He was in, uh, in that. Uh, Night of the Scarecrow. Congo. Uh, The Marshall. Like…  Craig: I think I vaguely remember him from Congo. Yeah. That was a terrible movie, too. But yeah, but, but the point is, like, look at this, this kid went on to do great things in a bit. Yes. You know, like, I will say for him, I think he was really trying. I think that he was really trying to give a quirky… character performance. It’s just very over the top. He’s kind of like Eugene in Greece or something like he’s so Awkward and not to that extreme but close. Todd: I would say he was probably a casualty of the way He was directed. I’m sure in every scene the director was like, I want you to look scared out of your wits more nerdy more  Craig: nerdy  Todd: Yeah, right, and you take all these little scenes individually and all right, that was perfect. That was a great take That’s exactly what I go for and then you string all those scenes together And that’s all he ever is he barely says anything. He just looks wide eyed Everywhere. Like, every tiny little thing. Actually, it made me laugh. I would say, like, if you want to laugh at a movie with your friends, definitely, this is a strong contender. Because it’s so baffling. This guy is so scared of everything. It made me, it reminded me of, you remember that, that movie that was shot at someone’s house for a little while? Uh, it was a famous, um, cinematographer. who worked for Orson Welles, uh, called Trick or Treat that we did. John Carradine was in it, otherwise forgettable, but there’s this hilarious scene where some trick or treaters come up to their house and they are completely freaked out by some, uh, paper Halloween cutouts that are taped to the door. Oh. Like the camera zooms in on them and zooms in on their eyes and zooms in on the cutouts again and zooms in on their eyes and you’re like, give me a freaking break. That’s exactly what happens to this guy. Throughout half of this movie. I felt bad for him. Most of what he’s freaked out about is paintings on the wall of this haunted house On the outside. I felt bad for him because I  Craig: felt like he was just getting manhandled and pushed around the whole movie like His friends are dicks, he gets hooked up with this girl who, oh god, she’s a dick too, I don’t, I, I honestly, like, I’m looking at my notes, they make no sense to me because I don’t remember what happens. Well, I just Nothing  Todd: happens! When you talk about the germ of an idea. Right? And you talk about what this movie could have been, but it just didn’t, it just isn’t well made. Um, it starts out with him tossing and turning in bed. And he gets these visions of this reaper looking guy with this very stylized skull mask, which… What I thought looked cool. I would actually like that mask. I like that  Craig: mask too, but by the time it showed up again, I had forgotten that it was in Todd: the beginning. That’s right. But he’s freaking out. There’s a storm outside. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s very stylized. It’s, uh, you know, bad with the light streaming in the window. Fog in his room for no good reason at all. Ha ha ha ha ha. But, yeah, he’s tormented. And he’s scared. And you’re like, okay, this is a, this is a scaredy cat. And then, uh, the next morning, we get this kind of crane shot that kind of swoops in on, it’s just a farm. It’s like a rural farmland area out in Austin apparently. Where there’s a group of people putting together a haunted house, and it is a huge team of people. Just takes us through this haunted house, where the sheriff is running for re election, so he’s walking through and handing out flyers for re election to everybody, and they’re doing some minor chatter, but what we hear come over the radio… On this Halloween day, convicted killer John Lewis Barker is being returned back to the federal facility for the criminally insane tonight. Earlier today, Judge Andrew Sykes declared a… Mistrial of the case of the psycho killer, and tonight authorities are transporting Parker out state. The federal facility for the criminally  Craig: Insane. Yeah, so like there’s this loony on the loose because a farmer’s cow escaped and the Loony bus. Had to, like, swerve to miss the cow and it crashed. Yeah. Oh my god, Todd, like, I, my notes, I, like, after we see the carnival, or whatever it is that they go to, I say, big guy drooling in the back of a loony van, and then, and then Warren and his friend at a haunted house looking for girls, and Shelly is a bumblebee, and she goes up to… Warren’s friend is like, let’s pollinate, and then they kiss for a solid minute.  Todd: While Warren stares at them, and the whole time, there is a bearded guy in a red shirt behind them that I cannot take my eyes off. And he’s just staring  Craig: and smiling. I think he’s just an extra that doesn’t realize that he’s in frame. Like he’s just watching them shoot this.  Todd: Right? At first I thought this was a director’s cameo. He’s in there. So many times, like every time they come back to this group. And he’ll be like in between them. So like two characters will be talking and this guy’s like head is right between them, not quite looking at them. Just kind of like looking around and smiling like he is in awe at everything around him for I forgot.  Craig: I, I swear to God I remember nothing about this. And then, so then, Warren has a girl, too, and her name is Barbara, and she’s a bitch, and she’s dressed as… And I say she’s a bitch only because, like, she just, for the whole movie, toys with him. Like, in one moment, she’ll be stuck up and push him away, and then in other moments, she acts like she’s… And like, something’s going to happen. I don’t know. I didn’t care for her. And I don’t, I don’t know what she was supposed to be dressed as like the bride of Frankenstein. I don’t know. She was  Todd: just in like a, she looked  Craig: to me like Angela from night of the demons. Except a little bit less cool.  Todd: There’s awkward Twizzler eating. Oh my God. That’s what I have.  Craig: She tells him that she steals from restaurants. And she’s got like salt shakers in her purse, whatever, and then I said, She forces him to eat a dirty purse twizzler. She just has loose twizzlers in her purse that she pulls out and forces him to eat. Yeah. I swear to God, my next, my next note is this scene is so bleeping awkward. Um, last weekend when I was at that wedding. On the way back, my mom and I were listening to podcasts, and I was like, there’s a new episode of our podcast out if you want to hear it. And she’s like, yeah, put it on. So we listened to the, um, uh, the Lady in White. Is that what that was called? Mm hmm. And at one point she said, you say that word too much. The F word. So I guess I’m getting a little bit too raunchy, so I’ll, I’ll try to be better. Sorry. For your mom. My  Todd: mom. You say that word too much. I bleeped those out. That, didn’t she appreciate  Craig: that? Well, I didn’t, I just, I just let it go. I didn’t want to comment  Todd: on it. Or was she just thinking of all the effort I have to put in? She’s probably not really being judgmental of you. She’s just probably feeling bad for all the effort I have to do to cut them out or to bleep them.  Craig: Maybe. Maybe. Or for the. Poor souls that are being corrupted by my by your f by your f bombs. No, it’s terrible. Yeah, that’s right Okay, so she makes him eat a dirty purse twizzler, and then she well, I  Todd: thought that yeah, go ahead I thought that this stealing all this stuff from the restaurant And leaving it in her purse would be a plot point later. I thought this was a setup for something.  Craig: The salt comes out again at some point for some reason. I don’t even remember why. I think just somebody just salts their food. It falls  Todd: on the ground! Oh, and he picks it up! I think, see, this is what I’m saying. I think this movie was supposed to be funny. I think they’re trying to make jokes here. There is a point where he’s running from the killer. Supposedly, inside the haunted house, and he’s got her purse, and he drops the purse, and all this stuff spills out, and the salt shaker opens up, and there’s salt all over the ground, and he dutifully scoops everything up into the purse, and then goes to the salt, which is just in a pile on the ground, scoops it up, takes the time to scoop it into his hand, pour it back into the salt shaker, and screw the top back on, before he puts it into his purse and continues running away. I, I was just baffled by that scene, and then I’m like, oh, think they’re trying to make a joke.  Craig: Well, I wasn’t really listening to you, because I was looking at my notes, but did you also Did you also say that Thanks, Craig. Not only does he scoop up the salt, but then he takes a pinch of it and throws it over his shoulder. Did you say that? Yeah,  Todd: in the middle of it. Yeah, uh, yeah. Sorry. I thought I thought he was gonna throw it in somebody’s face or something. I thought he was gonna use her butter knives that were in there. Like, there’s nothing except this, I guess, gag. But, it’s so hard to do jokes in this movie, because the whole movie’s kind of a joke, because it’s slow, everything that they’re saying is stilted. The scenes are just… It’s puzzlingly long and awkward, and I’m thinking, is this what they were going for? Is to show how awkward this guy is, because it’s working, but also it just feels like bad filmmaking. It’s like they didn’t know, they didn’t know how to edit this. They didn’t know how to speed up the action to the point where it was interesting. They didn’t have any discipline to cut things that weren’t working. Ugh, this guy, anyway, we are, we are treated to like, what, 30 minutes at least, maybe 45, of them just waiting outside this haunted house in this group of people, and it’s nothing but scene after scene of him freaking out. over a bird cawing, over the paintings of skeletons on the side of that thing. He bumps up against a rattlesnake cage, which is just sitting out in the open for no good reason, and it rattles at him, and that freaks him out. His watch goes off all the time, and that freaks him out. I mean, it’s a cartoon caricature of this guy who is just… On the edge of panicked all the time. Well, and his,  Craig: like his, God, I don’t, his friends aren’t nice to him. Like, at some point, a group of 50 year old teenagers comes and starts hitting on his girl. I say his girl just because they paired him up, like, she doesn’t seem to have any interest in him. You know, like, before they go into the haunted house. She says something provocative to him, like, Are you gonna try to take advantage of me in there? And she gives him like a slutty look and walks by and his friend like does the, you know, like, tongue in cheek blowjob symbol. But I don’t think that she is into him at all. I think that she’s just messing with him. And they’re always messing with him. And when this group of, like, 50 year old teenage boys come and like flirt with her, She kind of plays Damsel in Distress to get him to stand up for her, but then when he does, the guys just, like, rough him up, and they all laugh at it. Oh,  Todd: no. Well, what do you know? Come on, we’ll give you a cut. Thanks, but no thanks. Come on. You’re going in with us. No, JJ. I said no. No. I guess she doesn’t want to go. If I wanted to hear from an asshole. I’d fart. Better watch out, JJ. He’ll beat you up.  Craig: Yeah, don’t make  Todd: me use my karate. You think you’re a real comedian, don’t you? Pal. I don’t like meat. Oh, you’re so much. You are playing with knives. Stay out of it Barbara. This is between me and the comedian. What’s going on here? What’s going on? Party’s over, pal. This dude pulls a knife on him. He kind of freaks out, and then he stabs him with the knife, and I thought, holy shit, but it was a retractable  Craig: knife. Oh my god, there was no suspense there, that knife was the fakest looking knife I’ve ever seen. Yeah.  Todd: He acts like he was stabbed, like he is groaning and bent over for like a full minute. And I’m not sure, again, I wasn’t sure if that was a choice, like, we’re trying to show that this guy is so unhinged and so ready to be scared. Like, a character building thing, that even this fake knife hurts him. Or he thinks it hurts him. Right. But it doesn’t play that way. It just plays stupid.  Craig: It does play really stupid. And I just, I kept typing the dialogue because it was so… The farmer, the farmer who is not a character in this movie at all, says, You make me want to crap green onions. What?  Todd: What? I wrote that down too. That’s the line of the movie as far as I’m concerned.  Craig: And then the, like, they just pull dialogue. Directly from bumper stickers. Like if I wanted to hear from an asshole, I’d fart. Come on. Come on. One of my favorite. One of my favorite scenes. I’m just looking at all these lines. I wrote down. One of my favorite scenes is they start letting people in the haunted house or whatever. And the, the, the Barker is like, let me welcome you to my charming home. And then a few minutes later, Silence. Somebody bangs on the door and he opens it up and it’s a dad carrying a little girl and he, uh, he looks at the bark and goes, she couldn’t hack it. Todd: Like, of  Craig: course not. My God, it’s so funny. And then there’s like, so people finally get in there. Now it’s even before our main group gets in there, that shady business starts going on in there, isn’t it? Like there’s, there’s one room. You know, it’s a typical haunted house where you walk kind of from room to room and there’s a setup and one of the setups is a guy, a masked guy, like a gross, like a gross, deformed mask, um, and he’s got like a butcher’s apron on and he’s got a big old butcher knife or whatever and there’s another guy tied to the table, you know, classic, typical stuff. He’s, you know, hacking this guy up or whatever. But at some point, The guy on the table is like, hey, we need more beer, and so the guy with the knife goes away, and then they make it look like… Do you remember how this happened?  Todd: Alright, so, just before this, there’s a kid who’s holding a werewolf doll, and he sneaks in there, and… He sneaks in through the back door, and I guess the idea is that the back door was now left ajar. Right. Even though he could, you could just swing the back door open, there was no lock on it or anything.  Craig: No, the door was locked, but he found, there’s like a cut, like a cutout space near the ground that was hidden by a hay bale. Todd: He does. But then, when he comes out, he’s, he comes out through the back door, and it’s not locked at all. There’s a, it’s clearly visible, like, where a padlock should be. It’s just a swinging deal. I guess I  Craig: missed that, because later, he uses, he uses that… I don’t secret entrance more than once. You’re right. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.  Todd: This is baffling to me. Even having seen the whole movie, I cannot make heads or tails of this. He’s looking at the barn, like something weird is going on in the barn. There’s this implication, because we’ve seen the paddy wagon that has, uh, you know, avoided the cow and crashed and held the insane, the guy from the insane asylum, uh, has crashed and the cops are there and they can’t find the guy, he’s run off. The, the driver of the plate, of the truck was dead or whatever. And now this kid, who’s just snuck in there and now opens the back door, sees something in the shed. Barn, not shed. Goes to the barn, which is, I don’t know, you know, 50 feet away from the back door of this haunted house. In a quiet area of the farm. Kinda looks around in there and then leaves again. But, of course, the camera and the music and everything is making it, you know, it’s setting us up for this idea that the escaped lunatic is in the barn, and then, oh no, the back door of the haunted house is left ajar. And so that’s what happens just before this. And so, like what you said, when the two scare actors in that one scene, the guy on the table, by the way, do you know who he was? No. Eddie Munster.  Craig: Oh, funny. He lives 30 minutes away from me. Did you know that? No, is it? Yeah, Eddie Munster. He lives in Macon, Missouri. Are  Todd: you serious? Yeah. Is he acting? Is he doing theater down there? No, I don’t even  Craig: think he does anything. They have a big community theater down there and I don’t think he does anything with it. I, I assume he’s still there. I never heard that he left. Yeah.  Todd: So that’s the biggest, I mean, aside from the kid, the kid, uh, Warren, who we just said is a big time actor now, he wasn’t at this time. Eddie Munster is the biggest actor they have in this movie. And he must have been living in Austin or something. I feel like these are probably all local people. Anyway, yeah, you’re right. He says, go back and get me a beer. So, Jer goes back. Pops a beer and then we go back to that scene where the dude on the table whose name is Eddie as well Oh funny. Yeah, it’s like yelling. Hey Jed, Jed, you coming back out? You coming back out? There’s a new group coming through hurry up hurry up And then a dude comes in from the back wearing the freaky mask and of course the implication is this is not Jed This is somebody else. He doesn’t say anything. He goes right over to where they have a real knife Yeah. A real butcher knife. Which they’ve made  Craig: obvious, because like, both of them stuck their knives in the butcher block between groups of people, so that we’re fully aware these are actual  Todd: real knives. Yep, they set that up, which is stupid, by the way, don’t ever do that at home. And then it has this scene where the guys, those jerk adult teenagers, come in and see the scene. And this is, you know… This bit of the movie, being a Halloween movie, like, this brought me back. This is what these haunted attractions usually are all about. They’re cobbled together by the local Shriner’s Club, or the local Rotary Club, or school group, or something to raise money. So it’s all these volunteer people in there, just… Throwin some stuff together to, to have fun. And then the people who come through it are usually dicks. Ha ha ha! I know this because my dad and I used to put these together for the middle school when we lived in, uh, in Warrensburg. And, you know, people just come through and it’s like, just come through and enjoy. Right, no. No, they gotta come through and they gotta mess with the props. And they wanna, like, yell and I don’t know if they think they’re being cool or they wanna show how not scared they are, whatever. And these guys are being dicks. And they’re just standin there, ah Hack him up, hack him up. And we don’t see him hacking the body, but the implication here is clearly that This guy’s murdering this man in front of them. Yeah, and  Craig: you see blood splattering  Todd: everywhere. And the guys look a little disturbed, but then they start laughing again. They’re like, ah, ha, ha, man, that looks real real, that’s pretty good, blah, blah, blah. And then they go out of the room.  Craig: We’ve seen this before. Didn’t we do a movie just last year? I don’t know, one year, where it was like a haunt. Was it called Haunt or something? Yeah, I think so. It was a haunted attraction, and they were really killing people right in front of people, but of course you think it’s fake, so. And that’s one of the, that’s one of the fun things about Halloween. You could murder four people and just throw them on your lawn and people think you were just being festive. Todd: We’ve talked about that so many times, right?  Craig: Right. But doesn’t, don’t we find out immediately that we were. Tricked?  Todd: Yes. Some random dude pulls the mask off, and he’s like, Hey Eddie, that was pretty good acting. And Eddie pops his head up and is like, Yeah, that was a lot of fun, or  Craig: something like that. It’s just a different haunt worker. Yeah. Because the other guy, the guy who had been wearing the mask, is the dad of the little kid who snuck in, and he’s dealing with him and saying, You know you’re not supposed to be in here. Take woof woof. Take woof woof and get out of here. Oh my god, come on. Meanwhile, our main characters aren’t even inside yet. No. And Warren looks at his ticket and it’s 666 and like, he gets scared by a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake, why? Why does, why, there’s a rattlesnake in a, like a terrarium that, oh god, so stupid. Yeah. But then. Barbara has a monologue about Halloween. This is so exciting, Todd: Warren. Halloween night. The most thrilling holiday. Christmas is too expensive. Thanksgiving’s for turkeys. Easter’s for anyone who believes rabbits lay eggs. The Halloween. Creatures of the door Craig: But then they finally, finally get in there. They  Todd: take five steps inside . Yeah. Brad and that other girl immediately just start making out . Yeah. In the middle  Craig: of the corridor. Right. And then Warren, so awkwardly kisses Barb. Like the approach is so slow. Bro, just get there. Um, and after he kisses her, she yawns and then walks away like buh buh buh buh Like, literally, like singing to herself. It was so  Todd: weird. It has to be one of the most awkward kisses I’ve ever seen on film. It just, it was just bizarre. Cause he’s got his same wide eyed wild look. As he’s leaning in and and the two have barely exchanged, you know, three words it what’s the motivation Is it because he saw brad and the other chick kissing? I  Craig: guess like he thinks he’s gonna get lucky in there because brad did the blow job deal But like I have in my notes here. We’re halfway in and nothing Has happened. Nothing has happened. Oh, and then my next note is they have a real nail problem. In this haunted house, they have a major nail problem because it seems like four or five times somebody gets snagged on a huge nail sneaking out, sticking out of the wall. That’s a liability issue.  Todd: It really is don’t do that either guys Hammer those nails in And no real weapons  Craig: and then so then barbara’s away. Everybody else has gone ahead of him. And so Warren or whatever his name is is by himself and there was one scene where he was walking through the haunt Looking for them where the film quality was so bad that I couldn’t even believe that they kept it in was that the case on your whatever you watch? Yeah, it was just terrible like it looked like a static ETV from 1983.  Todd: Warren is kind of by himself, and this haunted house is like, you know, for the big crowd of people that was outside of it, it is just empty as hell when it needs to be, with nobody else going through there except for him and these people, and the building itself does not match. No. The cavernous interior of this place. No, these These scenes inside are actually kinda cool. At one point, he comes across a table that has Oh, another thing you don’t want in your haunt is real candles. And this place is also filled with real candles. Uh huh. Uh, major fire hazard. But there’s a table with, uh, filled with candles, and it looks like, uh, sort of a satanic altar or whatever. Cool, that he just walks by and is spooked by, and then He walks past a window and somebody reaches out to grab him and he’s spooked by that. And then he passes by, he sees a dude pulled under a wall. And again, it looks like it could be a scare actor, but maybe it’s not. And then sort of behind a bed in the next scene is there’s like a bedroom scene, but there’s nobody in it except for this guy, kind of from his dream. Right. Big hooded figure with the mask, with the big scythe. And he’s like, Stabbing that guy awkwardly, because it’s weird to stab with a scythe, behind the bed. And he sees that, and I think we’re supposed to think, is that the guy murdering them? We’re still not quite sure. But he’s freaked out by that too. Craig: And he hides, and then it’s like, the scene is kind of intercut with a lady on the news talking about how the killer is still out there, and the killer is like, God. I feel like we’re trying  Todd: We forgot to mention. Yeah, we forgot  Craig: to mention! At some point, one of the scare actors… Stopped Warren and it was like, are you one of those kids making trouble in here? Cause I guess those 50 year old teenagers are making trouble, right? So he’s like, are you one of those troublemakers? And he’s like, no, I swear I’m not. I’m just looking for my friends. And then that scare actor goes away or something. And now this. Psycho with this the scythe is chasing him. I guess following him I think would be a better way of saying  Todd: it following him is a better way to put it But  Craig: Warren gets a hold of the scythe. I don’t know he cuts the well the  Todd: Killer’s handoff, the killer comes into the room. I think it’s that bedroom actually. And he knocks over a bunch of candles from a candle labra, and the killer slips like a Looney Tune’s cartoon on one of the candles, falls on his back and. Warren gets to scythe, and as he stands up with the scythe and the killer stands up, somehow he swings the scythe around and almost inadvertently cuts this guy’s hand off. To which point he holds his wrist, and he screams, and Warren run drops the scythe and runs away, I think. And  Craig: then I don’t remember who said this, I just have the quote. I don’t remember if it was on the news, or if it was the sheriff. Somebody says, Every year, something’s gotta happen. People going in, not coming out. This happens every year? Like, Maybe you should not have this festival.  Todd: Oh my god. So then, this all, just At this point, just like kind of all, I don’t want to say all hell’s breaking loose. We’re with Warren most of the time, and he’s going from scene to scene. I think,  Craig: uh, But there’s an announcement on the PA, everybody get out right now. Something has happened. Everybody get out right  Todd: now. Yeah, and the cops have shown up, and they’re trying to get Jared to evacuate the place because they’re afraid that the killer’s inside for some reason. Right, but what? Who told them?  Craig: Right, I couldn’t, like, they say something has happened, get out, and I have in my notes what happened. Yeah.  Todd: Nothing happened. Or at least what happens anybody knows about. Yeah, nothing happened. The guy got his hand  Craig: cut off, but I don’t think anybody knows that. No. And then the sheriff walks towards the camera and says, damn it. And then either, and then either he or somebody else says, let’s go get us. A mental patient. Oh my god.  Todd: No, I think that was two random rednecks who we never see again. Maybe, I don’t know. But I guess what happens is the sheriff and his people hang outside for the next hour. Doing nothing. While we follow Warren through this whole place. And as they’re evacuating, he’s going over a bridge, and he slips and falls and ends up in this snake pit. Which is full with fake snakes. And he kind of goes crazy, maniacal, laughing.  Craig: Obviously fake snakes that he is terrified of when he finally falls down. He’s like, Oh, they’re fake. But I think he, this kid is losing that. Like, I don’t, I don’t know how together he was to begin with. I think maybe,  Todd: yeah, I don’t know. This is why I say or I said earlier on I honestly think the filmmakers are trying to be clever here like from the very Beginning with him and those dreams and all that stuff. This guy has been scared of his own shadow the whole time They’re really setting this guy up. He’s a sandwich short of a picnic this guy, right? Yeah, and that just early on it just plays as stupid. Uh huh. And as it goes on it’s still really stupid but Like he picks, like you said, like he picks up one of these rubber snakes and like bites its head off as he’s cackling. That was so  Craig: weird. And then that that kid, that kid is back and. He helps Warren out of the pit, and then Warren finds Barb’s purse, and then there’s a Hellraiser room. I wish we had spent more time in the Hellraiser room. That was my favorite set piece, and he just, he just walked through it twice. And then they see, he’s kind of with the kid, and they go into, there’s like a, uh, pendulum, like a pit in the pendulum room, and there’s like a headless body, and Warren freaks out, and the kid goes, What’s the matter? It’s only pretend. Dude, calm down. And then I have in my notes, then Warren is running scared. And I said, from what? Like, I don’t even know what he’s running from  Todd: at this point. That’s the problem. There’s no tension here for us because we have not seen anything chasing him. Every now and then, you know, except for that moment when that guy got his hand cut off, we really don’t see anything. He runs into the room and he’ll spend, you know, five minutes in this room just wandering two feet, you know, scared out of his wits, but nothing’s pursuing him. He spends a good minute and a half trying to push over a cardboard coffin. To like, I don’t know, block the doorway or something? It’s like, what is wrong with this guy? You know, it’s just baffling because you’re watching this movie, and you know what kind of movie it is, and I’m just thinking, does he have the problem? Or, is this movie just so poorly made that they’re trying to convince us that he’s having a hard time pushing over this cardboard coffin? It’s just stuff like this that, that made it hard to watch. That’s, yeah. And hard to take s Yeah, I don’t He picks up a chainsaw. And there’s this sort of Evil Dead style, again, the movie had ideas, right, like Warren looks, it’s a close up on his face. The, it kind of dollies back and the chainsaw is in the foreground and, you know, it’s supposed to be that, you know, Evil Dead like the chainsaw. He picks up the chainsaw, tries to start it. I didn’t hear the sound of a started chainsaw. But anyway, he wildly swings the chainsaw toward a curtain. And, you can tell that it’s not running, like, the chain is still. And then when he looks on the other side of the curtain, there’s a guy who’s fallen there. But he hasn’t cut the curtain, but apparently he cut the guy? That’s what I said,  Craig: in my notes, Warren Kills question mark? Innocent guy with chainsaw? Like, I don’t know. But I’ll tell ya. Yeah, go ahead. At  Todd: this point in the movie, I figured it out. I wasn’t sure I had figured it out, but I was like, I wonder if… He’s just cuckoo bananas. Mm hmm. I wonder if he really is running from nothing.  Craig: Yeah, I didn’t put it together I feel like an idiot. I don’t know. I mean they made such a Such a big deal throughout the whole thing about this lunatic Escaped and I mean he is  Todd: haven’t really seen him. Yeah. Well,  Craig: not really I mean we’ve seen a hulking figure in silhouette put that Mask on the same mask that he dreamed about earlier and this guy, like I said before, I said chasing isn’t the right word following is more appropriate. Like he is kind of following Warren around, but anyway, I don’t know, Warren gets up on the roof somehow and then he falls into a pile of pumpkins and then he points where he, I don’t know where he got a shotgun, but he finds a shotgun and points the barrel of it at his own Face. There, there are so many cautionary tales in this movie that there’s another thing not to do. If you find a shotgun, do not pick it up and point the barrel of it at your own face. Fair enough. Oh God. And then he stumbles through the pumpkins and then I have, then he’s trapped. Behind a plywood  Todd: wall. Ha ha ha! He’s very excited he’s found an eye hole. This reminded me of, um, Funhaus? You remember Funhaus? Yes. Where that girl is trapped behind a fan. Yes. And I’m just like, why don’t you just stop the fan and go through it like you’re right there. And the people on the other side, they could hear you if you just stopped the fan. Ha ha ha!  Craig: A plywood wall. We already know they don’t hammer in their nails. He could just push that over. Todd: God.  Craig: You did good, couldn’t you? But the killer is behind him, and then we So Warren jumps in a grave… And then the, the guy is like standing over him, I guess, and he  Todd: shoots, and the guy This was the one well framed shot of the entire movie. I don’t remember it. But just before he jumps in the grave. I’m gonna put it on the website. This is gonna be the feature shot. Okay. Again, if you saw this still, you would be like, Whoa, this, this movie has some style. He’s sitting scared up against a coffin with a pile of pumpkins next to him, and in silhouette with smoke coming out behind him. Just over his shoulder is that figure as an image. It looks great. But as a moving picture, it doesn’t really work But you’re right. He jumps into this grave that they have inside here man. God do not build this haunted house people It seems cool, but there are like pits that people can fall into. Yeah, and This guy pokes his head over the side, and Warren aims his gun up at this shadow and shoots, and I thought, yeah, shit, he killed somebody else. I  Craig: didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t really care either, but then he goes stumbling out, and I feel like he’s greeted by the police, and everybody else I feel like is just standing around, watching, and he just keeps, like, he keeps saying, he kept coming, he just kept coming. kept coming, I cut his hand off, and the police tell him, and we get to see, that no, uh, the guy whose hand he cut off was just that same haunt worker who had suspected him of causing mischief and had just been trying to follow him around to get him out of there. Yeah. And the guy that he shot… Was the sheriff yeah,  Todd: and  Craig: then we see we literally no God literally see that the psychopath Has just been in a field picking flowers picking day the  Todd: whole time daisies. That’s important No, it’s just it’s just stupid, right Picking daisies. How more cliche can you get? And like, when,  Craig: when the police find him, like, he’s this big hulking guy, and he’s just, like, kneeling in a field of flowers, picking flowers, and the poli like, a cop walks up to him, and he just turns and looks up and like, offers him a bouquet, a bouquet. Oh  Todd: god. Again, I think they’re trying to be funny. I guess,  Craig: whatever. And then Warren just keeps, he just keeps re he kept coming, he just kept coming, he just keeps repeating it, and he gets arrested and put in the back. of a cop car, and Barb has hooked up with the 50 year old teenager. And then, everybody goes back to partying. To partying! And the woman who’s selling the House of Horrors t shirts starts spray painting at the top of them. I survived. And there’s, like, a huge surge. Like, everybody has to get their hands on one of these t shirts.  Todd: Uh huh. That was hilarious. See what I mean? I think the movie is trying to be a little meta, a little subversive, you know, it’s trying to be funny. Well, it failed. Yeah, it failed because it’s just not well made. There are aspects of it, look, it takes some talent to be able to light a set that you’re shooting on film. You know, and to make it halfway decent, because we’ve seen movies that are not, you know, that are dark and hard. And yeah, I think there are some moments in here where the cinematography is quite good. There’s some crane shots. They’re trying to do some things, but just overall, the movie just doesn’t work. It’s a slog. It’s painful. Yes. It just is amateur hour all the way through. And even though it’s got some good ideas and there’s a twist at the end, that’s kind of fun and clever. My God, like. It’s just, objectively, not a great movie. Craig: The last shot is Warren sitting in the back of the police car, crazy eyed, and you hear a ghostly voice go, Warren. I don’t know. I have no idea. But you’re right. Like, the only credit that I’ll give it is that Some of the interior, the Haunted House interior set pieces were fun. I love a Haunted House attraction. Love it. Yeah. And so you’re gonna get me with that. Fine. But the movie is awful. I do not recommend it. I did not enjoy watching it. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would enjoy watching it. I don’t even think it would be fun to get drunk and watch with friends. I still think it would be boring. I think it would to a  Todd: point. I  Craig: think that you would just, you would end up, I mean, you might have a good time, but you would just end up ignoring the movie. The only context, like, if you were literally hosting a Halloween event, and you had a bunch of TVs around just playing horror movies, that would be fine, cause nobody’s gonna be paying attention to it, they’re just gonna catch some glimpses of the haunted house imagery, and the carnival, and that’s fun, that’s festive, that’s seasonal, great, but that’s it. That’s it. I just can’t. I just can’t with this. I want to, I always try, I always really, really try to find something positive to say and I just, this  Todd: one. You slipped a few positive things in there, you might not remember. I think about 40 minutes into this movie, it would be fun to make fun of and goof around with your friends, not by yourself. But, after, once Warren’s inside the haunted house and he’s by himself, it gets really boring. Scene after scene of nothing happening. Which, in retrospect, is the point of the movie. Right. Right?  Craig: Nothing was happening. It was all in his head. Right.  Todd: But a better made movie would be more suspenseful with this stuff. Craig: Well, we’ve seen, I’ve seen movies like that before too. There was a movie that took place in, it’s not the one that we did, that took place in the Paris catacombs. There’s another movie that takes place in the Paris catacombs and Pink, the singer, is in it. Oh. And she lives in Paris and her sister comes to visit and they go to a rave in the Paris… But then, the police come and raid it or something like that, and they, Pink and her friends and her sister all get kind of lost together in the catacombs, and then a killer starts picking them off one by one, and the final girl is the sister. Alright, spoilers, if you haven’t seen this movie and you want to, it turns out that all along, Pink and her friends were just f ing with her sister, but the sister didn’t know that, so she killed them all. Oh god! And then, and then the last, the last one, I think the last one to go is Pink, and she’s like, you’re such a f ing loser, we were just messing with you, and then the sister kills her too.  Todd: That’s what you get.  Craig: So I’ve seen, I’ve seen movies like this before where somebody is happening. So they react violently and it turns out they were wrong. I’ve seen those types of movies before. It can be clever. It can be a clever, surprising twist. And I guess in this movie, you figured it out before I did. I didn’t figure it out. I mean, I, I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t know that it was all in his head until they showed that. Hulking man picking flowers in the field, and then I rolled my eyes like, oh jeez. So the twist is, the twist is fine. Again, I feel like you’ve already said it all. I’ll say it again. It just, it’s not executed well.  Todd: I, you know, this movie was plucked out of absolute obscurity. Like I said earlier, it was shown once. Probably at the premiere where the whole, everybody was gathered and family and everybody was involved in Austin making this movie. It was obviously this, yeah, it’s obviously this labor of love and this fun thing that I’m sure everybody was gaga over just because this 19 year old kid and all these people participated in it. And I get that. It’s nice. I do too. One of the actors said it supposedly did like a, like a little circuit in Asia. Or in Eastern Europe, but I don’t buy that. I at least don’t see much evidence for it. This movie just literally just kind of sat on a shelf and was forgotten. And somehow, somewhere, Turner Classic Movies. Discovered it and picked it up and showed it and it got released by one of these One of these labels that like vinegar syndrome find these very obscure movies that would otherwise be lost to time Yeah, rescue them give them a proper DVD release and you can You can hear a director’s commentary on that, as well as the director’s short film, Mr. Pumpkin, which I really, really looked for and couldn’t find, that came before this, about a kid who imagines that his pumpkin has come to life on Halloween. I thought that could be cute. But yeah, it would be on the DVD, and I obviously don’t have access to that and couldn’t find it anywhere online. So I get, uh, I get that. And for that, I thought it was nice. Like I said, I thought There’s Nothing Out There was a similar type of story, but way better executed, maybe because that guy’s parents were actually, like, editors in the film industry. I do like  Craig: that there are… People, corporations, entities out there who do try to, you know, kind of rescue these more obscure films, uh, you know, because I’m sure that this movie is important and special to somebody and, and for it to completely Fade into obscurity. I don’t I don’t wish  Todd: that on anybody. No, and I’m bitter. You know, I’m bitter because why doesn’t somebody pluck out that that movie that I made in college and decided it was worth it? Putting it on streaming services and shit, you know? Come on, vinegar syndrome, get, uh, Dumping Jenny out there to the world for the weekend. Hilarious. Aside from the fact that it’s a nice, interesting bit of ephemera that meant something to somebody, it’s, it’s not gonna win any awards. No.  Craig: This is not gonna be one of those movies where you’re like, Oh my god, how have I not seen this? It’s so great. It’s a, it’s a camp classic. Nope. It’s not.  Todd: Yeah, apparently, it’s the reason why Scream got changed from its original title of Scary Movie to Scream, because the filmmakers here wrote to Wes Craven and begged him not to name his movie Scary Movie, and he acquiesced. Interesting. And it is Halloween. Oh, yeah. Happy Halloween, everybody. You’re gonna go out to haunts like this, out in barns or in warehouses or things like that. I hope you are. This is exactly like that. You’re gonna hang around with douchey people just like these people do, waiting in line. You’re gonna have a lot of fun like these guys were. Before, you know, hands got cut off and sheriff’s got blasted in the face, you know? And so, uh, it does have that spirit of it. Totally. I mean, this is something that I would at least throw up as a great example of what a, you know, an American style Halloween night out would be like. Absolutely. For that it’s, it’s entirely appropriate that we do a movie like this. On this day, and I do want to thank our patrons for bringing this to our attention. It’s certainly, our patrons certainly bring us the more interesting films that we otherwise would not have chosen ourselves. Right,  Craig: and we’ve been doing this for so long now that we need that help. We do. We need you to kind of throw new things our way because… We’ve done everything. Just kidding. No, we haven’t. We’ve got a lot more to  Todd: do. We sure do. And another year coming up real soon. Thank you so much, patrons, for recommending this movie to us, and we hope that everybody out there has a very, very happy and safe Halloween, no matter how you celebrate it or where you are. If you would like to join our Patreon community, go to patreon.com/ChainsawPodcast. We also have a new domain name for our website that’s a little easier to remember, just in case you have to do the outro again, Craig. ChainsawHorror.com. But if you follow our old website at 2guys.red40.com, you can also get there as well. Go there, check out our whole back catalog, leave us a message there, or on our Facebook page or Instagram, and uh, let us know what you thought of this movie and what movies we should do in the future. Share this podcast with someone you love this Halloween season. And until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig. Happy Halloween from Two Guys and a Chainsaw. https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Fscary-movie-1991%2F&linkname=Scary%20Movie%20%281991%29https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/mastodon?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Fscary-movie-1991%2F&linkname=Scary%20Movie%20%281991%29https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Fscary-movie-1991%2F&linkname=Scary%20Movie%20%281991%29https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fchainsawhorror.com%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Fscary-movie-1991%2F&title=Scary%20Movie%20%281991%29

We put it to our Patrons to choose the last two movies of the month. We’re happy to announce that the first of those films is this Mexican flick from the 80’s that is almost like two movies in one: It begins life as a standard slasher, and wraps up as a Thriller-inspired kid’s flick. It’s not perfect, and it’s certainly derivative, but Cementerio del Terror hits the mark when it comes to pure Halloween-style joy. Thanks once again to the collective wisdom of our loyal Patrons! cemetery of terror poster [https://i0.wp.com/2guys.red40net.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/cemeteryofterr1-poster.jpg?resize=472%2C630&ssl=1]https://i0.wp.com/2guys.red40net.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/cemeteryofterr1-poster.jpg?ssl=1 Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript Cemetery of Terror (1985) Episode 365, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw 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, what, are we four, I think, into Halloween right now? I don’t know. It’s going  Craig: too quickly. There’s only one more to  Todd: go. It is, man. I’m That’s a bummer. Let’s make Halloween last all Kind of does last all year for us, doesn’t it? We do. Let’s be honest. You know, this month of being very special for us, uh, we actually had a more difficult time than usual trying to pick Halloween things. I think because nothing in particular really jumps out at us anymore, right, when it comes to ha We’ve, we’ve done the, the classic Halloween type horror movies, the ones that we really want to do. Right. And now, uh, I don’t know if you want to say we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. There’s always new stuff coming out. But, uh, yeah, we’re a little more likely to give that choice over to our patrons. And that’s exactly what we did for these last two weeks. We, uh, put about five or so movies to our patrons that we were thinking about doing, some that they have suggested, some that have long been suggested on our On our show, and uh, asked what they wanted. And the first to come out of that is 1985’s Cemetery of Terror. Definitely not something I would have picked, uh, right off the bat. So, kudos to them for giving us a very interesting movie. This is a film, uh, directed by a guy named Ruben Galindo Jr. His first movie, I think he was fresh out of film school at USC when he put this together. He was still  Craig: in school. Oh, is that right? His dad, he was, yeah, he was still in school. His dad called him, um, I think from Mexico and said he had to come home and start making his first picture. What? Like . Well, maybe his dad is like a producer or something. Yeah,  Todd: his dad was in the business. Definitely. Yeah,  Craig: so, well, I noticed his name, the name Galindo, I think there, I think it’s produced by a Galindo too. So maybe that was his dad. I’m not sure. Yeah, I just read that anecdote that he got like called away from college to come make this make this damn  Todd: make him a movie already  Craig: Well, if he was 23 and he was still in school, okay, it’s  Todd: about time come on, yeah, what are you doing it don’t waste your life Well, his dad, um, I believe, uh, was a director and writer known for quite a few Mexican movies. I mean, I, he’s directed like almost 50 movies going all the way back to like the 70s, early 70s, including one called Santo versus the killer from another world, which I feel like I have seen. It’s one of those, um. Luchadores kind of movies that are really really popular in Mexico that I have only barely dipped my toes into and I’m always kind of bookmarked that like this is something I need to come back to and check out but um, yeah, uh, yeah, you’re right. He got called back and he shot this on location in Brownsville, Texas. Have you ever been to Brownsville, Texas?  Craig: I’ve never been to Texas. I don’t have any interest in going to Texas. Sorry, Texans!  Todd: I lived in Texas for years as a kid, um, and I had relatives who lived in Texas as well, a couple of them still there, and my grandparents even, who were… Born and raised in Illinois and barely ever left the DeKalb, Illinois area. Nonetheless, found themselves in Brownsville, Texas, when I was, I don’t know, ten? Maybe nine or ten years old. And I believe at that time we were living in Del Rio. Del Rio’s a border town. In fact, it’s been in the news the last couple years because of, you know, a lot of stuff’s been happening around, along the border. And Del Rio got a little notorious for taking some fairly extreme measures with, um… Some of the people crossing over and I think I think it was when we were living in Del Rio that We went down and took a trip to visit my grandparents in Brownsville, Texas It is about as south in the US as you can get I’m not sure maybe the tip of Florida is a little further south, but this is the very very tip It’s not actually known as a very safe place. In fact, but I had a wonderful time there as a kid We went to the beach right there on the Gulf and picked up seashells and stuff Sand dollars and things I still have anyway. Uh, yeah. So Brownsville, Texas, this was shot down there and, uh, it’s all in Spanish. Was there even, I know you’re a big, bigger fan of, of watching the dubbed version, did you manage to find these days? Dubbed version?  Craig: No, I, uh, I checked shutter and they didn’t have one available, which is fine. But it’s like, another thing is it’s hard to watch these movies. Because, I’m constantly looking away from the screen to take notes. And you can’t really do that because you miss stuff. So, I found myself pausing and rewinding and pausing and rewinding. Which was fine. Uh… But, you know, that’s what I’m saying. It’s not, I’m not illiterate. It’s not that I don’t like to read. It’s just, I’m trying to do several things at the same time. Anyway. It is inconvenient. Yeah, so it was in Spanish. And it was fun. You know, I used to speak Spanish. I was relatively fluent in Spanish in, like, college. Mm hmm. Because… I was, you know, studying it all the time, went to Mexico just, you know, for like a spring break, but being immersed in the language, like I totally got by fine. It’s gone. It’s totally gone. Mine too. I don’t know anything. And I want it back. I get really, I get really excited when I like recognize a word. I know what that means! Oh  Todd: boy. This whole movie I was convincing myself I really understood the Spanish and I probably could have listened to it without, but I’m not fooling anyone. I understood  Craig: parts of it and I feel like I could have watched it without the subtitles and that it would have been fine. Like, it’s not like the dialogue  Todd: is important. No, it’s not. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on. It might even be fun to give this the, uh, What was that old show? Was it called Mad Movies or something? Where they used to redub movies in a funny way? I feel like this movie is ripe for that Because the dialogue itself is pretty hilarious at times It’s, you know, I’d say my overall impressions of this movie is And I think I texted you this The first 40 minutes, it’s an hour and a half The first half of this movie is kind of a slog And I probably would have turned it off. This is the kind of movie I might have had going in the background and given it a bit of a chance, but generally speaking, it’s college kids coming together in an old house and it just takes forever to kind of get to the point. But boy, when it gets to the point, it gets interesting. And then I would say the last 30 minutes are just batshit crazy. It’s at least  Craig: Two movies.  Todd: Yes! I feel like it, right?  Craig: There are two movies happening here. They just both have the same villain and are set in the same place, but they are completely separate stories and completely separate movies. Different characters. It’s weird. Like, it obviously draws. inspiration from lots of places. Like there’s totally a Halloween thing going on where it’s basically a psycho escapes and there’s a doctor who knows how evil he is and knows that even though everybody thinks he’s dead, the body must be destroyed because he’s not really a man, he’s just evil. There’s that. And then. Teenagers for that guy to slaughter. That’s one movie. That’s Halloween. But then, the second half of the movie is a children’s movie. Like I’m trying to wrap my head around it. Because literally, it becomes a children’s movie. It’s funny to me that you say it’s a slog to get through. Because, I mean, it kind of is. It introduces, it introduces, a thousand characters. There are so many characters in this movie. It introduces a thousand people. There are, the main ones are these six  Todd: med students? I guess? I’m not sure, really. They’re just college kids. I think they’re  Craig: med students. College kids, something. Okay, so, they’re coupled off. They’re characters. There’s nothing unique or individual about any one of them. They’re just a bunch. Uh, I don’t want to say assholes because, you know, they’re just normal kids trying to have a good time or whatever, but there’s Jorge and Olivia, Oscar and Mariana, Pedro and Lina. I don’t have anything to say about them except that they’re just kind of like horny kids, or the guys are horny, and they… Lie to these girls that they’re interested in and tell them that they’re going to take them to this like, exclusive party. What was the word that they, a jet set party? A jet set  Todd: party, yeah, I was like, They  Craig: are so, these girls, like, one girl walks into the other girls and is like, Hey ladies, I’m going to a jet set party tonight. Like, ah, like, hilarious. That was Olivia, she was my favorite, she had curly red hair, she was funny.  Todd: I did appreciate we had, like, a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette. That kept them together. Thank God,  Craig: because there would have been no other way to tell them apart. Exactly. The boys are, one of them has a beard. The other two are identical twins. I don’t know. Right. Oh, God. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Because, so they trick these girls into coming to this, like, they think it’s going to be fun. It’s Halloween. Yay. And they think it’s going to be fun to just, like, hang out. At this old, abandoned house. And like, obviously, the boys… Are trying to get it in, but the girls are pissed that they got lied to about the jet set party. Yeah. So they’re all mad, and so one of them has a genius idea. They’re mad at us, and they’re scared, because something… What happened that scared them? Well… Oh, they found that weird book! Yeah,  Todd: the, um, I think it’s, uh… The Necronomicon. Oh, Jorge, I don’t remember. One of those guys. The neck scarf guy is Jorge, that’s how I have him down. Yeah,  Craig: I had that down too! I don’t remember. Yeah, Jorge is neckerchief. I have that in my notes too. It’s  Todd: this big house. It, you know, it actually got me, gave me Spooky’s vibes. You know, when they all  Craig: pulled up. Yeah, very much.  Todd: Right? Very much. The house is just filled with cobwebs and it’s huge. And he goes up to the attic and he finds a… A book that’s sitting there on a stand, very pres Presentational, in the attic. And he starts flipping through it, he brings it down, he starts reading from it and it’s It’s sort of incantations or something, I don’t know, you know, it’s just scary. Oh my god, it’s like,  Craig: it’s so 80s, right, it’s so scary movie like, Ooh, look at this old book with something written on the cover in blood. Yeah. Let’s read it aloud.  Todd: Let’s read it aloud. Perform a ceremony for fun because that’ll be interesting. Like you said, the girls are not having fun so their idea is to scare them more. Uh, so they’ll fall into their  Craig: arms. So they tell the girls that they’re going to steal a body from the morgue. I think they must be medical students. They’re going to steal a body from the morgue and they’re going to call on Satan to bring this body back to life. Good idea. That’s, that’s a great, that sounds like a great idea. So they do. They go to the morgue, they steal a body, they bring it back, they chant Latin and Satan y verses over it. In the cemetery. In the cemetery. Of terror. And it moves, it moves its fingers and one of them sees it and they’re like, Ah, you’re crazy. And then it starts raining. So they’re like, never mind. And they just go inside and just leave the body out there. And my, my favorite part of the movie, I think, is that they go back in the house and I have in my notes. Holy shit. It worked! Because these girls are down to f k now. Like, they are so f king horny.  Todd: Maybe it was the fire, and then this other couple’s in another room, and this other couple’s upstairs, and they’re all just like, there’s no nudity though, in this, um, in this movie. It doesn’t really get quite as… Lots of awkward kissing. What  Craig: was it? Did you notice the… That one couple… Kissed with no tongue for like a minute, and it was really weird. It was just like a million smooches Super weird, but yeah, okay, so one couple’s out on the porch and The girl makes the guy go in to get her a drink and we see POV shot Lumbering towards her and then it cuts back to the boyfriend and he comes back outside and she’s gone And he walks five steps into the yard and finds her body with its throat torn out and he turns around this part was so weird to me because it’s like The killer is standing right in front of him, but it’s like he can’t see us And the killer just keeps reaching out and swiping I also don’t understand this like every time he like claws at somebody it leaves huge Claw marks. Yeah, wherever he touched. I don’t know what this guy is supposed to be, but he scratches both sides of this guy’s face and every time it happens, the guy’s face moves like he got slapped, but then he looks back right in front of him like he’s confused, like Like What’s happening to me? It’s really  Todd: weird. Almost a, more of a curious look than a look of terror on his face. But where is this guy? He doesn’t look scared at all. He doesn’t look scared. And then again, like you said, this killer has got to be right in front of him, but he’s staring right in front of him and like looking left and right, like what? Oh no, not again. He touches his face like he doesn’t even know and sees blood on his fingers. Then he’s mildly alarmed. But by this point. The killer guts him. Yeah. I thought the makeup effects were surprisingly  Craig: good. I don’t know about in this part. Like, those scratches on their face looked good if it was on stage. But on camera, like, they clearly, they obviously weren’t cut. Like, it was just, it didn’t even look, it didn’t even look like they had used, you know, like wax or anything. To make it look like a cut they just put makeup on top. Yeah But but  Todd: the like one they’re gutted like the aftermath of uh, like the girl’s throat being ripped, you know ripped out and right Yeah, oh that was all that stuff. Yeah hanging. It’s just pretty cool So like it gives you the impression of brutality, but it’s not a savini these are like Savini style effects where you actually see the monster like tearing into their flesh or, you know, see the cuts happening or whatnot. It’s, it’s always right after it happened. You just kind of see the aftermath, but, but yeah, I mean, his guts are hanging out and bloody and I don’t know, I thought it was kind of impressive. Craig: I mean, it was fine. I fairly standard before I watched the movie. I read just like a A viewer review or whatever, and it said, um, The, the, the kills aren’t unique enough, they’re all the same. And I kind of agree. Now we can go through them all if you want to, I don’t mind doing that at all. But what was interesting to me was it took 40 minutes. Yeah, maybe even more like 42, 43 minutes to get to the kills and then they all happen in 45 seconds. Yes, one  Todd: right after the other. It’s just, it’s the same like, oh, I wonder where Oscar is and they’ll like go outside. And then it  Craig: turns into another movie and nobody else dies. Yeah, the whole rest of the movie. It’s crazy, like, he picks off these kids one by one, and like, it was fun following, you know, his POV, and knowing that he was right behind these kids, and they had no idea what was going on, like, it was fun, but it felt like they tried to pack that The whole third act of that movie into less than five minutes. Yeah.  Todd: It’s jarring in that way. And it leaves you wondering, like, what the hell’s gonna happen now? And then, we get the kids. Ha ha! Who we had been introduced to early. They were, all of this has been interspersed with some scenes. Yeah. Um, one of the scenes is between the doctor, as you mentioned. Uh, Dr. Cardon, I think. Um, who actually, I, I, is a very well known Mexican actor. He’s got almost 200 credits. He had actually done some, uh, I think we’ve seen him before. I think we saw him in the, the Fulci movie, City of the Living Dead. He did some horror films in Italy, some horror movies in Mexico, quite a few. I think he’s still working. And so, uh, he might be the most famous in Mexico, you know, of the people in this movie. And yeah, it’s him in this. There’s this captain who are, you know, it’s your typical, he’s, like you said, he’s trying to convince the captain that this body needs to be cremated. And he’s the captain’s like, what are you crazy? He’s going to get a normal burial. No, no, it needs to be cremated. And there’s just all of this kind of awkward and stilted tension there. I don’t remember what, what instigates them to go out and actually look. Oh, it’s the MORE gets broken into.  Craig: No, no. Well, I think that Dr. Cardin, like, the judge wouldn’t grant the rights to have him cremated or something. So I think Dr. Cardin Falsified. I don’t know. He was I think he was falsifying documents. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was doing. But I think that he was falsifying documents, and he took them to the captain and was like, See here, now we can cremate him. And it just so happens that they arrive at the morgue while Those boys are in the process of Taking out that very body. Stealing that body. That’s the body they steal, the body of that satanic killer that this guy’s all worried about. But they just miss him. Like, they just miss  Todd: him. It’s quite a coincidence. And he spends most of the rest of the movie sitting in a car, looking wildly left and right. Driving around looking for it. Driving. I don’t know how he thinks he’s gonna find, he’s gonna find this guy just by driving around in a car. But that’s his strategy.  Craig: I don’t know. And the cop, at first, the cop’s like, Don’t worry about it, it’ll turn up.  Todd: This is the most laid back police captain I’ve ever seen in my life.  Craig: He doesn’t even, like, get upset. Like, Cardin steals his car. Like, the cop gets out of the car to call the precinct or something. Or call his wife. Yeah, he calls his wife because he got on the police radio, Uh, sir, your wife called, she wants you to call her right away. Because their kids are in this little group of kids that, This movie is going to focus on from now on, but while he’s on the phone, the other guy Carden steals his car and he’s like, Oh, he puts another quarter in the pay phone and he’s like, send somebody to pick me up. Hurry up. Todd: It’s so funny.  Craig: It’s really not like it’s not as fun as I’m making it sound. I mean, there are things that I like about it. It’s charming. I actually, this children’s movie that we’re now watching is cute. I like these kids a lot. Like, usually in movies, well, just in life in general, kids are like fucking annoying. But, um, especially in horror movies, I don’t deal with little children. That’s a whole different story. Trust me, teenagers have their moments too, but… Anyway, usually kids… And these movies can be really, really annoying. Like, frickin Bob from that horrible other, was that a cemetery movie too?  Todd: Yeah, House by  Craig: the Cemetery. So, Bob. These are like, you don’t get to know them as well, but they’re like monster squad kids. Like, they seem like nice, fun, cool kids that I would have loved to have been friends with when I was that age. Especially Tony, who’s like the older one and he’s handsome and he’s cool. Like, oh man, I would have wanted to be Tony’s friend so bad. And so it’s, it’s fun. It’s fun to follow them around. It is,  Todd: and we were introduced to them fairly early on in the movie. Like you said, it introduces all these characters kind of all at once before we focus on the slashings at the house. But these kids are just getting ready for Halloween, and they’re, they’re carrying actual jack o lanterns, which I thought was awesome. Craig: Right, and like, I also thought it was cool. I read that at the time, Halloween in Mexico… Was mostly for kids. I mean, I guess that’s kind of true of the States too. Yeah. Um, but just like in the States now in Mexico, it’s kind of celebrated by all ages. But at the time, it was really kind of like for little kids. And so I like seeing this little kid stuff. Like they put on masks and they talk about going out trick or treating and they talk about like pranking their neighbors and yes, they are like carrying around jack o lanterns like, um, Lanterns, which is really cool, but they’re not just like they’re not the huge Pumpkins that we see they’re like smaller  Todd: gourds and something you could actually carry basically Yeah,  Craig: like like and and maybe not a pumpkin maybe like a squash or something Yeah, but they look really cool and just to see those kids And they don’t, they’re not really in costumes, I think one kid has a mask that he wears for a while, but just to see them kind of parading around at night, holding those lanterns, that was really nostalgic for me, which is one of the selling points, because I’m not going to rave, at the end of this episode, I’m not going to rave about this movie, but there were things about it. That I appreciated.  Todd: Yeah, it just gave the feel of like, my Halloween night. You think you’re gonna go off on a little adventure, you know, and that’s kind of what these kids are doing. Tony’s idea as the leader is to start out at the cemetery, cause it’s gonna be really, really spooky. And so they go into the cemetery, uh, to the gate. Uh, they  Craig: hitchhike. To the cemetery. That’s right. They get in some rando’s  Todd: van. Oh, you wouldn’t want to hitchhike in Brownsville now. I don’t even think in 85 you would have wanted to hitchhike in Brownsville, but  Craig: yeah. Uh, the director was driving the van, just in  Todd: case you were curious. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, so he, uh, they go to the cemetery and there’s this kind of iron gates there, and they walk in, and as they walk in, the gates close behind them. And then we don’t see them for a while. Like you said, like the kids, the older kids are at this house and getting murdered. Until, uh, the young kids, finally we catch back up with them. And, at this point, when I realized, Wait a second, the next half of this movie is gonna be about these kids? I know! I was… And then they show up at that house and I’m like, Oh, this could be  Craig: interesting. It just, it aligns that all of the 20 somethings die and then the kids show up at the cemetery and it’s a great cemetery. Out of nowhere, a crypt, like, explodes?  Todd: Yeah! A grave opens, and flames shoot out of it. Which scares them, which it should. And they run for a while. So  Craig: they, right, so they run for help, and the house that they come to… is the murder house.  Todd: It’s the house by the cemetery. How  Craig: can I really? I really liked this part too. I liked the way that this part was shot when they came in the house. It was shot with the camera pulled way far back, like in a different room, like it was shooting through the window. Like a big doorway, and in the foreground for us, we see one of those twenty something guys dead and hung up on the wall. We saw that happen to him.  Todd: Mm hmm. Very Michael Myers style.  Craig: Right. We see it in the foreground, and in the background, we see the kids come in, and they’re looking around, but they can’t see it because, like, the doorway’s in the way. And then I think, oh, they’re gonna come into the door and they’re gonna see it. But nope, they just look around the other way, because that’s where the stairs are, and they start creeping up the stairs. I just really liked the way that that was shot. And, and the kids are all huddled together like they’re the Goonies. Like, that was great.  Todd: Yeah, this was not a, hey, let’s split up and explore the house situation. They were smart, and they all went up together like the  Craig: Goonies. They remain smart. That’s what’s fun about the movie, like, because eventually they get upstairs and they find bodies, like, they didn’t see that first one immediately, they, they see it later, but they find bodies up there, and then, that psycho, what’s his name, Devlin, Devlin the psycho, he  Todd: comes in, comes up the stairs, and he  Craig: starts, which one is it, it’s Jason, that just like, you can run, That’s kind of this guy. Like he’s not really chasing them. He’s more following  Todd: them, right? Yet he’s always there right  Craig: behind, like he’s, he’s trying to get to them, but he’s pretty slow and, uh, not cause he’s like Frankenstein’s monster or anything. He just doesn’t seem to be any particular hurry. Like I can get, I’ll get them when I get them. I mean, we find out that he has. telekinesis. At one point he pulls, much later, he pulls a girl towards him using his mind.  Todd: That’s the way one of the guys in this room gets, gets killed. Cause he picks an axe up off the, like, a decoration on the wall. And he’s  Craig: running after him. One of the twenty  something  Todd: guys, right? Yeah, one of the twenty somethings. And, uh, cabinets behind him start banging, and the wind is blowing, and suddenly the axe gets a mind of its own, and, uh, spins around, and he’s fighting it, and eventually, kind of, basically axes himself, I guess, but the axe is possessed. I  Craig: liked that. That was cool. I liked the way that it was shot. Because usually… I don’t know if it was the angles or what we couldn’t see, but usually when you see somebody trying to pretend like they’re struggling with something, like an invisible force, it doesn’t look convincing. And this was really, really brief, and I don’t even know if you really saw like, his hands on the thing, like, struggling with it, I can’t remember, but I thought he did a good job. I thought, whether it was the acting or the way it was shot. I don’t know. I liked it. I thought that it was a clever kill where it was kind of the only clever one. I mean, yeah, lots of them were satisfying. I also liked the one where two of the 20 somethings are getting it on and one of the boy has to go pee. And so he goes downstairs and goes outside to pee because apparently the Bathroom is full of bats. And she’s up in the window like teasing him. And he turns around and he sees the killer behind her and screams, you know, look out or something. And she turns around and just gets mauled and killed. Like, I liked that. And I liked seeing the initial part of the attack basically from the boyfriend’s Perspective from a distance and you know framed in light. It was cool. There’s some cool stuff going on  Todd: here Yeah, it’s actually pretty well shot that for this movie. I I would say Almost entirely well shot as far as the cinematography goes and like I said, the makeup effects are pretty serviceable Like you said the it’s a little surprising at times with the axe in particular that scene also jumped out at me When the guy gets uh impaled on the wall, that was a little baffling Because he kind of gets lifted up by the neck and then just sort of placed on the wall where  Craig: apparently yeah You I have no idea what he was impaled. Todd: Yeah, but it happens super fast because he just lifted up and it looks like he’s lifted Up placed on a wall and now he’s dead Immediately dead  Craig: Maybe he broke his neck. He did pick him up by the neck. So maybe his neck was broken I don’t know but anyway, so the kids Like, this guy is, like, menacing them, and they have to, like, Tony is, you know, the hero, and he, like, pulls the axe out of that dead guy, out of his head. Yeah. What I like about this is, they, they hide for a little bit, um, but, These kids help each other and don’t leave one another behind. Like, they’re all in it together. Like, nobody’s getting left behind. If one of them’s going down, they’re all going down fighting. Because, and that’s, I don’t know, that’s kind of rare. I feel like you don’t see that very often. So I like that, it was cool. And they’re innovative and they get away and they run outside. And they’re in the cemetery.  Todd: And it becomes… Thriller.. Destiny Yes!! It’s so, so true!  Craig: Literally Thriller, now… I read, on a pretty reputable source, I think that this movie was literally inspired by Thriller. Oh yeah. One of the kids is wearing a Michael Jackson jacket. Yes! Like, with Michael Jackson’s face airbrushed on the back. Uh huh. And, one of the makeup artists who worked on Thriller is a makeup artist on this. Todd: Oh, no way! That  Craig: makes sense. Thriller literally happens. Yes. Without the song and dance. But. The rest of it. You still get  Todd: Michael Jackson in there, too.  Craig: Michael Jackson is in there. It is Looney Tunes. No, Michael Jackson’s not in there. I mean, his face  Todd: is. Yeah, it’s close.  Craig: But it’s great. I mean, who doesn’t love Thriller, right? It’s the Thriller set. Like, it’s that old, decrepit, uh, cemetery with the, with the mist coming out of the graves and the really old, crooked, rickety tombstones and crosses and stuff. I love it. It’s the set of Thriller. I love Thriller. It’s great. You said before that this reminded you of Spooky’s, another movie that was giving, it was giving me… And it makes perfect sense because this movie, too, seemed to be inspired by Thriller, was the Midnight Hour. Oh, yeah. This gave me some Midnight Hour vibes.  Todd: That’s true. Especially with a movie within a movie kind of situation where we got multiple stories going on here. I mean, all that was happening around the same time, 84, 85, when this movie came out. Yeah, right.  Craig: Right. And so, okay, so it’s Thriller. Like, and again, like, these kids, they, what, they run around with these zombies for…  Todd: For a while. Five minutes? Yeah, it’s a long time. Then, the impression that you’re supposed to get is the cemetery’s so huge and confusing that they can’t even find their way out. Craig: Well, and, like, one of them will fall, and then one of them will fall in a hole,  Todd: and then… Zombies are coming out of the wall of the muddy walls of the open grave, and, you know, reaching out.  Craig: Yeah, and one of them will get grabbed, and the rest of them will stop and run back and fight the zombie and get their friend and run again, and, like, these things just… Keep happening. But again, I was just so impressed that they were in it together. I want to believe that that would be true, especially with kids. Cause kids are so much more pure and  Todd: empathetic. You just said they were all assholes. And now you’re saying they’re pure.  Craig: I didn’t say they were assholes. I said they were annoying. Annoying. I don’t know. Maybe I, maybe I said they’re assholes. No, you didn’t. It sounds like,  Todd: it sounds like something I would  Craig: say. I like the kids that I’m related to. I like your kid.  Todd: Oh, sometimes I don’t like my kid, you know? It depends on the day.  Craig: I haven’t, I haven’t seen him since he could talk.  Todd: So, I don’t think I have anyway. That’s when it all starts to go south. That’s when, that’s when all the problems start.  Craig: Yeah, yeah,  Todd: for sure. Oh, jeez. No, for the record, I love my kid. He’s so much fun to be with. Obviously.  Craig: Yeah, your, your kid’s awesome. That’s why dogs are the best, like, they just love you and they never learn to talk. It’s  Todd: amazing. You know, people are trying to get the, you know, especially with AI now, there’s this potential that maybe we could use AI to learn the language of animals. And I’m like, boy, that is going to open a can of worms. I am not sure we want to be able to talk to these animals.  Craig: On the one hand, I’m like, no, I don’t want to know what they’re thinking. But on the other hand, Like, I think they just love me so much.  Todd: I just want to hear it.  Craig: That would, I know, it would be really amazing to hear just somebody all the time being like, Oh, I love you, you’re my favorite person. Oh, you’re home, I’m so excited. Ah. Anyway, so these kids, they get chased around a bunch, and then they finally get to the gate. I didn’t see this coming. Me neither. The gate had slammed supernaturally behind them when they came in the cemetery, which was ominous, I enjoyed it. Um, but then they get to the gate, and it’s locked, and they start rattling it, and the gate grows out of the ground like 12 feet at least. It shoots up  Todd: really high. It is awesome. And I’m not exactly sure how they did it. I’m not either. But it looks great. It’s super impressive. It’s almost like out of a Tim Burton movie or something. This gate just like, it’s extended real fast. And I really dug that bit. And again, I also had no idea how they did that. This part with  Craig: the kids running around in the cemetery is a lot of fun. Like this part, I would recommend, I would almost recommend just skipping the first half. Just watch, just watch the kid movie. The kid movie is fun. The other one’s okay. Like, and if you like these kind of old movies and you know, it is set at Halloween and that’s fun. But if you’ve seen, um, Hell Knight or any  Todd: number of  Craig: them, there are so many movies that are just  Todd: like this. It’s very derivative. It  Craig: really is. Even kind of like. Slumber Party Massacre is basically what’s going on in the first half of the movie, and that’s fine if you like those types of movies, great. I’ve kind of seen enough of them, so I was like, eh, okay, that’s fine. But this was good. I really could get into this, and I honestly think that if I had seen this movie when I was a kid… Oh, yeah. You would probably have been a favorite, but I might have fast forwarded through the first part, but I think I would have really, really dug this second.  Todd: It’s not even gory at this point, I think. No,  Craig: there’s really no violence. The, uh, like the makeup effects are great, but they look like the Thriller zombies and maybe even a little dustier than the Thriller, maybe not even as juicy as the Thriller zombies, so less scary potentially than the Thriller zombies. Um, but no, there is like the scariest stuff, and it is scary because it’s kids, is like the zombies will catch them sometimes, or, or they’re right next to them. The doctor shows up, his drive around paid off, cause… He ends up  Todd: gate crashing, right? Yeah. He rams his car through, thank god, you know, random driving around happens to drive by right when he sees the kids at the gate rattling it. You know, what they should have done once he crashed the gate was just… Fricking leave. Leave the cemetery. Go out through the gate . Yeah. Come, go out the way you came in. Instead, the doctor shows up and he’s like a martial artist. I love it. He just starts punching zombies in the face, and kicking them. They try to actually, they do try to leave, right? ’cause they get in the car and the car can’t start. I don’t know why he turned off the car, but in any case, the car, I.  Craig: died. I think it died like from the impact or whatever, because he hit the gate and then he plowed down a bunch of zombies too. So I think we’re supposed to believe that the car died. Maybe we’re supposed to think that it’s supernatural. I don’t know,  Todd: but it won’t start. Yeah, they’re like the car is half surrounded, close to being fully surrounded, but then they kind of make it out before it does. And he punches a zombie right in the face as they’re, as the kids are escaping. And so then they’re all running around through the cemetery, punching and kicking zombies and trying to get back. And they eventually end up back at that house. I love that interspersed with this, we get the parents who were so worried with the captain about the kids. And once again, this captain is so useless. He’s got them all gathered in like his office, uh, the parents of these kids. And I think somebody’s sister and whatnot. Yeah, and he’s like don’t worry. They’ll show up everything’s fine. Then he gets a phone call and it’s like what? Oh, okay, send them in and he says they found some kids. Let’s see if they’re yours This cop escorts two kids and they’re just looking at the ground they’re like Nope, not ours. Okay, send them back. Craig: That was really hilarious. It was also funny. Yeah, like, they were all just, I mean, I, what else would they be doing? I don’t know. But they were all just like sitting in his office like crying. Like, oh, I’m so worried. He’s never been away from me for a whole night before. It was funny. But you skipped, you skipped one of my funny moments. Not one of my favorite parts, but a part that I definitely wanted to mention at one point when they’re in the cemetery before they get to the house, the kids in the doctor, a tree falls on the dock and he’s like, just leave me a tiny little tree and it’s, you’re right. And they’re trying to lift it off and they can’t, you’re like, just go. They’re like, no, we won’t. And one of the girls turns around and is like, the dead people are getting close and the doctor pulls. One of the biggest crucifixes I’ve ever seen  Todd: out of his jacket. Which we didn’t know he had. No! And I’m still not sure why he has it. This, it would  Craig: be a decorative crucifix that you hate, like, big. Like, I’m talking like a good 16 inches top to bottom and bulky. Yeah. Where did that come from? This is just like a thin… Cross with a little skinny Jesus on it. No, this is a big, bulky, Decorative crucifix that he apparently has been carrying under his jacket the whole time, this whole time. And so she runs, and it’s, it’s magic. Like, that, I mean they could have stayed there all night. Right? That crucifix. I don’t know why they didn’t. I don’t either, but uh, eventually he, the doctor says something like, Oh, if I only had that book, I could put an end to all of this. Yeah, well the girl says, You’re  Todd: free. I think she’s kind of free. You’re free. And he’s like, Nobody will be free until I get that book and put Devlin in his place. And Tony’s  Craig: like, Wait. Book. Did you say book? I saw a book. .  Todd: Uh, it’s a little clunky. Yeah, .  Craig: So he tells them, I don’t even understand, like, I thought he was free, but then he’s like, run, run. Go get it. Burn it. And he kind of  Todd: hangs back. Well, he, he’s, I guess he’s supposed to be injured because he picked, he’s got the crucifix now and he’s trying to ward up the zombies. In the meantime, he’s leaned against a giant cross, like a, you know, a grave marker type cross that’s made outta wood. And I guess he’s sort. Man sized. Yeah. And he sort of snaps it as he’s leaning on it, and so now he’s using that to, like, stab through the zombies. I don’t know why that cross didn’t really work to fend them away, because now he’s got a giant cross. Like, why didn’t he just They weren’t getting that  Craig: close to him. That’s true. He was just kind of hobbling along. But it’s just so you can get the kids in the house first. And so, you know, they’re still being menaced by zombies. There are zombies everywhere, but this is so frickin cute, like, they play like hot Like there’s zombies everywhere. So they’re like playing hot potato with the book. Like they’re tossing it back and forth between each other. Adorable, but they’re trying to get it into the fire. But Looney Tunes guy is in there too. Whatever his name is Dev Devlin,  Todd: he comes in very menacingly. He’s  Craig: in there too. And just as one of these cute girls. I loved this girl. They all have names, but I can’t remember what they were. This was Oosy. Oosy, yeah. She was adorable. She reminded me of Max from Stranger Things, but younger. Anyway, she uh, takes the book and she goes to throw it in the fire, but she like, physically can’t because Looney Tunes is controlling her with his mind. And this is when he… Like, Jedi mind tricks her, like, like, levitate, not levitate, but just like drags her with his mind. He just like, slides  Todd: across the room towards him,  Craig: yeah. Yeah. But at the last second, the doctor comes in… With his giant cross. But like, he’s not as injured now as he was before.  Todd: Because he can fight. He and Devlin just have a straight out face off, yeah.  Craig: He’s fighting Devlin, the other kids are fighting zombies. This girl with the book is just standing there like she’s still frozen. In tears. Right. Does something happen? Like, does Carden get the better of the psycho for a second or something? Cause eventually the spell  Todd: gets broken. Yeah, I think he just kind of like eventually gets the better of him and he keeps screaming at her, Throw the book in the fire! Throw the book in the fire! And so eventually the spell’s broken, and she runs to the fire, throws the book in, and everything starts bursting into flames. All the bad guys. And the house is bursting into flames, and… Devlin is bursting into flames. I was just like, this movie is nuts. It was  Craig: pretty nuts. And then… That’s kinda it? Yeah, the cops Does it cut to the next  Todd: morning? Yeah, it’s like these movies are, it’s the next morning, but it also seems to have just be the very next thing that happens, because the cops are pulling the kids out of the house, and they got bodies going into a, what do you call it, an ambulance, and there’s a big crowd outside,  Craig: and The only thing that we missed, I looked at my notes, the only thing that we missed was that once the book is Devlin and Cardin are still fighting and Devlin is using his claws, I guess, to rip Cardin up. So it looks like Cardin is in kind of bad shape, but we don’t see him die or anything. No, we don’t. I also liked, before it’s the next morning, The captain and the cop that he are with get a call and they’re like, they think they found our kids. Go to the old abandoned house. So they drive up to the old abandoned house. They drive up to it in the cop car. They both get out. It’s dark. They’re the only ones there. There’s no, you can’t hear or see anything else happening, which I don’t understand because the house is on fire.  Todd: There’s insanity going on inside. Right.  Craig: But they run, they both run into the house and the other cop immediately runs back out and runs to the radio. It’s like, Tell him we found the kids. That was comical to me, like he immediately ran back out. Yeah. And then it’s the next morning, right? That’s right, okay. Yeah, and I mean, that’s it. Like, there’s a closing scene. Crowds have but crowds have gathered, like, and they’re bringing out the bodies and stuff, but you see a POV from upstairs, and I didn’t know what was going  Todd: on. It looked like Devlin  Craig: was back It was his POV, like, we’ve only seen POV shots from him. Correct. Yeah. From his perspective. Although it’s Up to this point.  Todd: At this point, it’s not exactly POV, it’s a little more over his shoulder, because we can see See he’s carrying a book, and we can see his arms, and the book is still half intact, it’s a bit charred, but uh, he sets it on the stand and starts to flip it open to those, those original pages, and the camera swoops around and up, and it’s not Devlin, it’s the Doctor. Or  Craig: is it?  Todd: Yeah.  Craig: No, he laughs in Devlin’s voice, like. In his head, I think that I think that Devlin, the suggestion is that Devlin has possessed the doctor, which fine, fine, suitable ending. I like those kind of grim twists in, uh, endings. That’s that’s great. Um, I couldn’t believe for a second I That they would have killed any of those kids. Um, but I almost feel like that’s why it’s two movies. Like they wanted to have the gore and violence, but they couldn’t do it with the kids, right? So they got it. They had that whole other storyline. They, they did it. They got it out of the way and then they moved on. And let it go. And so it’s, it’s weird. Like it’s, it’s tonally and structurally really weird. Yeah. And, and as I was sitting watching it, you know, I had, I had worked all day. I had come home. I am going on a trip tomorrow and I’m not packed. Like I was trying to get stuff done. I’m running around. I’m folding laundry while I’m watching this movie. While I’m watching it, I’m thinking, ugh. It’s fine. Whatever. Like, you know, like I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t doing anything for me necessarily. But okay, I get it. Whatever. That’s fine. Um, but sitting here and talking to you about it and kind of reliving it in my head, there were things that I did like about it. And I think that had I not been so hurried and had my mind on other things, I think I would have enjoyed it more. But I do stand by what I said that the first part is It’s you’ve seen it before yeah, you’ve seen that movie dozens of times, and that’s okay. I mean we keep watching them  Todd: This whole podcast is about really how  Craig: many of those exact movies have we done a million? So that’s fine if you’re you know if you like that kind of thing fine if you’ve never seen this movie before and you’re curious It’s not awful at all. It’s it’s perfectly fine, but I think where I, I don’t know. This movie apparently, it has kind of a cult following, um, I’m constantly seeing it on lists of, uh, you know, underrated things that you should see. So I think that this movie has an audience and a fandom, and I would just almost be willing to bet that most of that is because… Of the second half Yeah, and  Todd: it’s Halloween through and through. It’s thriller. There’s nothing more Halloween than thriller. I mean, you know, there’s zombies bursting out of graves. Mayhem. The crazy effects. It’s just charming. I found it really charming. There’s a point where the kids are running through there, and they, they hide in a crypt. Crypt, you know, zombies have been bursting out of these crypts, but they swing by one, and they’re like, this would be a good idea to go in here. And they open the door, and you can tell it’s kind of flimsy. Like, this door looks like it’s made out of plywood, painted to look like stone. It’s a set! You know? Like,  Craig: it’s obviously  Todd: a set. It is, but it’s fun. Yeah, 100%. It’s like running through your Halloween decorations and, you know.  Craig: Or going to a really great, like, haunted graveyard or haunted  Todd: house, right? Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed that part of it. I thought, like I said earlier, I just thought a lot of people would not even necessarily give this movie a chance. Even to the point where they get the book and they’re doing the ceremony and the… In the, it’s, it’s like 40 minutes in, I think before that all ends up going down. Yeah, it’s, and up until there, it’s, it’s not that compelling. There’s like a water skiing scene, you know, it’s trying to kind of, oh my God, I forgot about the water skiing scene. just. For no good reason, on their way to the party, they decide to meet up with one of their friends who waterskis, and he splashes them, and Yeah. It’s kind of supposed to be silly, but yeah, it’s just, it’s just not very compelling up to that point, and it’s, it’s very derivative, and it’s kind of silly, but uh, after that. point, you know, once the killings start and then the kids come in, it’s, uh, it’s fun. Yeah. I would totally recommend it. By the way, um, we were talking about those kids and you were mentioning Tony. Eduardo Capetillo, uh, is the name of him and he is acting like crazy right now.  Craig: Well, and I, I think I saw that he, he produces two maybe, I don’t remember. Yeah, I looked him up because he looked, he looked familiar to me, but I looked at his filmography and I didn’t see anything that I recognized. Yeah, it’s all  Todd: Spanish TV series, yeah. I  Craig: think he just had that cute. Nice kid. Look of the 80s. Like a mix, like a mix of Rudy and Sean from the Monsters. Haha, there you go. Not, not as tough and badass as, uh, as Rudy, but, but still older, but nice. Uh huh. He was like the nice kid who was really really good at baseball in the sandlot. Oh yeah. Remember that kid? Uh huh. He was like that kid, just nice and handsome. Like, I would have so wanted to be his friend. Ha Anyway, you know, like as it’s Halloweeny, it’s set at Halloween. There’s Halloween everywhere. Like you said, uh, jack o lanterns, trick or treating, pranks, zombies. So yeah, I, I, I don’t think that I would recommend it to my friends who are not like hardcore horror. Right. But you guys, I would totally recommend it if, if you haven’t seen it, I think you’ll dig it. Yeah. So, and it would be a fun thing to put on at this time of year. And it’s available  Todd: on Shudder right now, so you can check it out there. Well thank you again for listening. We have one more Halloween episode. Coming up for you the big one I don’t even know what it’s gonna be because the patrons were waiting for the final votes to come in If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. This is the perfect time to do it because it’s Halloween We do some of our best work this time of year Please find us online just by googling two guys in a chainsaw Drop us a note and let us know what you thought and have a conversation with us And if you’re a patron, please get on over there and vote to find which of the last movies we’re going to do this season before we jump into all those Thanksgiving movies, uh, next month. Ha ha ha. If you’d like to be a part of that, please check out patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and you too can shape the direction of this show. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. 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For the first time ever in a Halloween season, we head to the theaters to give our take on a contentious movie, The Exorcist: Believer. And we’re delighted to have our returning guest and old friend, Heather, join us to give her take as well. How does this sequel stand up the original? And how does this first installment bode for the trilogy of Exorcist films that David Gordon Green is bringing into the world? Early reviews have not been kind. Where will the three of US fall on the spectrum? Listen up – you may be surprised…. exorcist believer poster [https://i0.wp.com/2guys.red40net.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/exorcist-believer-poster-679x1024.jpeg?resize=679%2C1024&ssl=1]https://i0.wp.com/2guys.red40net.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/10/exorcist-believer-poster.jpeg?ssl=1 Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript The Exorcist: Believer (2023) Episode 364, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. Craig: And I’m Craig. Todd: And we are joined here today for the, ah, second, third, I don’t remember how many times you’ve been on the show, but every time you come it’s lovely to have you, Heather. Thank you so much for joining us.   Heather: Hi guys! Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to talk about this movie.  Todd: You were also the person who, uh, it was actually your brainchild to put together the behind the scenes interview for us that became our premium for our Patreon subscribers that is on the Patreon channel. One of the very first things that our patrons can see to get a little bit of insight into us and the genesis behind the show and what we do behind the scenes. A little bit about our personalities. And you were the person who came up with the idea and asked us all the questions and, uh, and made that halfway interesting.  Heather: I was, I was really excited to get to do that with you guys.   Todd: Thank you so much. And by the way, everyone, if you are interested in hearing that, all you have to do is go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, and, uh, that’s enough promotion right now, what we are here today to do is to go into our third week of our Halloween extravaganza. Super excited this week to be doing a brand new movie. I don’t think we’ve ever done this for our Halloween extravaganza before. Just days after it’s come out across the world. The Exorcist Believer. And I believe you guys went to see it together, didn’t you? Yep. Yep. We went yesterday. I had forgotten what it was like to go to the theater, let alone with another person, because there’s so little that comes out in China that I’m actually interested in going out and seeing nowadays, post pandemic with a political situation, everything’s kind of gone to shit. But, um, Actually, I happened to be traveling in Thailand last week and in Bangkok, I saw three horror movies on the big screen. I think it opened in Thailand a few days before it opened in the States, actually. So I managed to catch it on IMAX. I never thought I would be seeing a movie like The Exorcist on the giant fricking IMAX screen with all that sound, that amazing sound system. Uh, it was something else. You know, it’s not what I would have thought of as like a giant screen movie. You know, I would think of something like an action movie or whatever that would be a little more appropriate. But, that was our only option at the time, and it, I don’t know, it, it, it was pretty cool seeing it on the big screen, and the sound design alone, um, I think it probably made it more impactful than it would have been for us otherwise, so, uh, it wasn’t a bad call, but I can’t imagine there are too many IMAXs in the states showing them. The exorcist believer right now. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wouldn’t  Craig: think so, but I, I, I’m a little bit jealous because when you texted me that you had seen it, one of the things that you said was that there are some really good sound jump scares. Yeah. Uh, I, maybe I’m just old and deaf, but it felt like our sound was kind of low. And so I didn’t. I think maybe I missed those. So yeah, it’s a bummer.  Todd: Ours might’ve been punishingly loud because I think even before all the main action happened in the, in the, you know, kind of last, last half of the movie, there were a number of, um, I guess transitions. That were just, like, very jarring, and, uh, there was, like, a sound punctuation that kind of went with it that had us jump just from that alone. That, anyway, that was the IMAX experience. Maybe it’s just different. You know, I’ll, real quick, I’ll tell ya, I’ve been to Thailand once, like, 20 years ago, so I’m not up on Thai culture. This is my, only my second time ever, ever being there. And, uh, I had been told many times before that the Thais love horror movies and they produce a lot of horror movies and that was never more apparent as when I’m in this movie theater, keep in mind, very, very fancy movie theater, like in a, in the highest end shopping mall in Bangkok, it was gorgeous, it had so many options for screens and seating, they had a theater with beds where you could just like, Yeah, lay down and watch the movie. No, I don’t like that.  Craig: Yeah. No, thank  Todd: you. They had a theater with beds. They had a several different versions of theaters with different sizes of comfy chairs that recline and they had a theater with sofas, double sofas. Even some of their bigger theaters had sofas in the back for a premium price. They had this giant IMAX screen. They had 4D, I don’t know if you guys have ever seen a 4D movie, but they’re a little more comment over here in Asia, where you fricking sit in the chair and it’s like, they jerk you around and they flash lights at you. And sometimes there’s water and almost like seeing a 3d movie at a theme park, but it’s like Marvel. It’s pretty nuts. Like they had all these options. I think there were 25 different screens at this, at this place. And the movies on display, I would tell you about half of the available movies were horror movies. Awesome. We saw Saw X. Talk To Me and The Exorcist Believer. They were also playing the original Exorcist, the extended producer’s cut, which I kind of wanted to see, but didn’t have a chance to. And they had like four or five Thai horror movies that were either playing right now or being heavily promoted at that time. Plus The Nun. I mean, it was, it was very heavily horror. It was pretty interesting.  Craig: Well, I was going to say, well, it is October, but Like, is Halloween a thing there? No, it’s not. Well, nonetheless. Heather: When you said you had gone to see it, I was like, how? Cause, I remember in one of your previous episodes, you mentioned that in China, they don’t often show movies there. That are horror or, uh, had spiritual elements or, you know, things of that nature. So that makes sense now that you were not in  Todd: China. Yeah, yeah. And in China, the movies don’t pass the censors. If they have any supernatural elements, the only way to get around that. Sometimes producers will actually add a quick little scene or an extra scene or whatever that somehow changes the story so that by the end of it, it turns out that the person was crazy and it was all happening in their heads or something like that, you know, so yeah, it’s just one of those things. So no, there was no hope of seeing it in China. Thank God I was out and was able to catch it on the big screen because it’s been getting a lot of, um, reviews and not all of them are positive.  Craig: I’ve not read anything positive about it except for you. You said you liked it, and that’s the only person. That  Todd: I’ve heard that from. And what I did say is, I liked it, and I hadn’t read any of their reviews before I went in. I didn’t see any press about it. Embarrassingly, I didn’t even realize this was coming out. It’s  Craig: David Gordon Green. He’s the same guy that did the, uh, Halloween… Trilogy the most recent one and that was really polarizing too Now the first one of those you and I watched and we really liked I thought it was really good And then the second one and then the third one I Thought was a perfectly fine movie but I understood why people didn’t like it because it was supposed to be this big final showdown between Laurie and Michael and And it wasn’t about them. Like, the movie was not about them. They were secondary characters. They did come together for a fight at the end, but they had already done that in the first movie, and better. So, I still enjoyed it, but I understand why people didn’t. And I kind of feel the same way about this movie. I enjoyed it. I had fun watching it, and so I would encourage people to go watch it if they’re not going to get pissed off that it’s not anywhere near the same league as the original. Like, if that’s going to piss you off, if you’re going to compare it and you’re going to be mad that it’s not as good as the original, don’t bother. Because it’s not. But, you know, as an Exorcist movie? It was okay. Todd: Heather, had you read any reviews going into it?  Heather: No, I hadn’t read anything about it. Um, but as soon as I started seeing previews for it, I got really excited, and I actually sent it to Craig. Um, and I was like, oh, I really want to see this. Mainly because I saw that Ellen Burstyn was coming back, and that was exciting. And like, I made special note of like, The makeup, the design, when they were showing the girls possessed, it was the same makeup design as the original, and I loved that they kept that. Uh, but ultimately, I liked it. I would say definitely go see it, uh, if you were a fan of these movies. But there were just some things that I was… It’s a little bit disappointed with, ultimately, because, I mean, it’s not the original.  Craig: It’s not, but I really did have fun and I had fun going with Heather because there were several times that both of us laughed and I was glad that she was with me because if I had been the only one in the theater laughing, I would have felt Um, because I wasn’t laughing because it was trying to be funny, and because we saw it in the theater. I didn’t take any notes, so I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to remember specifically what I was laughing about. Most of it was in the end. But there were just, I don’t know, some, some silly things. Do we want to get into it? Because I want to say right out of the gate. What my biggest problem with this movie is, is that, are we cool?  Todd: We’re cool with it, but I, I, I don’t know if I made my point clear as well, that after, uh, you mentioned to me that it was getting poor reviews, I did go out and read the reviews and I think I messaged you back and I said, yeah, I pretty much agree with all of the negative comments about the movie, but like you guys, I didn’t feel like. It made the movie a bad movie. I just felt like it, it just didn’t live up to the Admittedly super high and probably unreachable expectations of you know the original right like it’s a pretty high bar to cross If you try to make the movie exactly like the first one or try to get all the same notes You’re kind of doing more of a remake with different characters and slightly different situations so I could see where They were trying to kind of extend it a little bit, try to shake things up with a little bit more of that inner faith and things. But I do feel like most of the criticism came down to the fact that it just lost a lot of its edge because it got all muddled with so many characters and Yes. It loses focus and part of the focus and intensity of the original is because it is that girl and that demon with that one and then two priests. all in that room. Uh, and it’s just, it feels like the stakes are really, really high and there’s very little that can be  Craig: done. I agree with you. I think the problem, one of the problems is that it’s not different enough. Like it’s, it’s basically the same story, but, but this time it’s two girls and This time, it’s not just Catholics who can do exorcisms, but other than that, pretty much the same. Just not as, just not as good. For a couple of reasons, but I, I, I feel like for chronology’s sake, it opens what, in Haiti? It was at where they were. Yeah. Okay. So they’re in Haiti and it’s this couple, this young, beautiful, uh, couple and they’re photographers, both of them. And she is wildly pregnant. They separate because he wants to like, I don’t know, like climb a bell tower or something to take pictures. And she’s like, Nine month pregnant, she doesn’t want to climb a bell tower. So, they separate, and while they’re apart, there’s an earthquake. And she is caught in, uh, some, some stuff falls on her. And the doctors tell him, he’s played by, um, the guy from Hamilton, by the way. Leslie Odom Jr. What’s his name? Leslie Odom Jr. The doctors tell him that they can only save… His wife or the baby and he has to make the choice and then it immediately cuts to 13 years later in his home with him and his 13 year old daughter. Yep. Fine. Great. Good setup. Okay, here’s my problem. These girls who get possessed. We do not get to know them at all. Not one little bit. There is one scene. With the dad and the daughter. The other girl, I don’t even remember if she speaks before they’re out in the woods doing, like, teenage witchy stuff. And that bothers me because then there are no stakes, like, they get possessed and I’m like, eh, I don’t care, so what. We,  Todd: we do get to know them, though, because we see them at school and they’re chatting around and they’re, you’re right, the one girl, um, Catherine is the one, is  Craig: the… The  Todd: friend. The white girl. Yeah. The friend. Uh, Angela’s black and Catherine is white. I feel like we get to know a lot of Angela. Really?  Craig: She just has that one conversation with her dad, and we know that she… Misses her mom.  Todd: That’s it. She’s planning an event and she misses her mom. Maybe I remember it slightly differently. I, I just, I, I see, I feel like I remember a little bit more of Angela. And very, very little of Catherine. Like Catherine pops in, like you said. Uh, as a friend who, you know, they’re like swapping notes in class and sending messages to each other to arrange this meetup that never happens. You’re right. We never really get to see Catherine until they meet up in the woods and have that one scene. I don’t  Craig: know, so it just seems like the stakes are really low. Heather, what did you think?  Heather: No, I agree. I mean, in the beginning, we… Get to know her a little bit. I mean, she’s going through her mom’s things, so she’s trying to get to learn things about her. Um, and the dad’s kind of protective of all of those sentimental items. But then, yeah, that’s it, and then they’re in the classroom, and I think you’re right. I think something was off with our sound, because there’s a whole exchange, um, with her and the girl sitting behind her, and they’re whispering about, I don’t know, the plans for the night, and you, I couldn’t hear it. I missed the entire  Craig: thing. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. No. And then they’re disappeared. Like, and when they’re in the woods, I say they do, like, teenage witchy stuff, like, it’s not anything serious. No. You know, it’s just, like, they’re kinda trying to do, like, a little seance or something, cause Angela wants to talk to her mom. Totally, totally innocent stuff. But, the movie, I think, eventually tells us that that opens them up to evil spirits. It’s muddy. Yeah. I don’t really get it. Like, I don’t Well Like, I don’t understand the s Is there really any significance of that place that they are in the woods, or is it just, it’s  Todd: spooky? Well, it’s almost like a scary stories that tell in the dark type situation where you get this idea that maybe Catherine Had this ritual that she learned about or heard about because she says something as Angela brings the scarf right  Craig: of her Yeah, yeah, well, but she doesn’t that’s the thing like her debt. She was going to she was supposed to bring She was supposed to bring some kind of personal item, but her dad Took it away from her before she went to school. So she didn’t really have anything, which kind of is a plot point later.  Todd: Yeah, it almost seems to like imply that because she didn’t have that personal item with her, then just any spirit could enter her maybe instead of that. Heather: But yeah, that’s mentioned because when she’s finally talking about what they had done and they were going, and the whole point was that if they had an object, they were going because she. Could hear her mom’s voice. If they had the object, then her mom would speak to her. But like, since she didn’t have the scarf because her dad had taken it away, Mm hmm. Todd: Her mom wasn’t there. So yeah, but I mean, in fairness, like, I mean, compared to the original movie, it’s just a Ouija board. That’s true. Yeah. And did we, it’s been so long, you’re gonna have to refresh my memory. We are planning to do The Exorcist in the very near future, but I haven’t seen it in a very long time. Do we really get to know that much about Reagan?  Craig: Well, no, but, no, but we are, we spend more time with her before she is in the throes of possession, and that’s another thing, like, maybe the Exorcist is a little bit quaint. in their portrayal of Regan, because even though Regan, I think Linda Blair was 15 when she played the part, but they kind of infantilized her a little bit. Like, she’s very childlike. Probably in a way that would read as false today. And, and it was a little, I think for some reason, jarring to me how old these girls were. I almost felt like it would have been scarier, and the stakes would have been higher if they had been… Younger. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t… So, okay. So, they’re lost, right? And they… They’re gone. Like, their parents are freaking out. Everybody’s looking for them. And they eventually find them three days later, thirty miles away. In a barn.  Todd: Mm hmm. Traumatized. Yeah.  Craig: Right. They have no idea where they’ve been. They think they’ve only been gone a couple of hours. And this too, like, the second they’re back, Catherine, her eyes are rolling around in her head. Like, like the second they’re back, they are possessed. And it’s  Todd: Well, to be fair, I mean, there’s a, there’s a bit of, of scenery in the hospital where they’re just kind of stunned, right? They’re just sitting there. They’re not answering questions or they’re being very vague. They’re not really talking. They almost just seem like they’re in another world. And, uh, in the process of trying to sort of shake them out of it, eventually, yeah, Catherine starts to, to do that. But I feel like a little more time passes before that happens. But  Craig: it’s minutes. It’s minutes before, uh, Angela, she like, here’s a crying baby outside and she walks slowly and ominously up to the window of her room and slapped. it and the baby stops crying and everybody looks around like all of this happens mere minutes after they are back Well, and and a lot of like they go to sleep that night and then they wake up the next morning and they are full out demons  Todd: I Mean a lot of that’s due to the fact that like in between all that like I think a lot of time passes here, and a lot of stuff is going on, but it’s not with the girls. It’s with all the people rushing in. It’s all the byplay between the fathers, and there’s some tension there between the fathers and the parents, and some disagreements and some accusations happening. And, and that… I thought was interesting. I liked that bit of the story at this time, because I could see, as a father, you know, whose son has had a run in or two with another kid at school or whatever, thankfully nothing really came of it, but I’ve thought about the fact that, man, maybe I’m gonna have to face these parents, and they’re gonna be, you know, way more upset about XYZ than I am, and we’re gonna have to negotiate. Above their own problem, even if the kids kind of make up, now the parents are forming their opinions about our family. And then with the religious aspect of it thrown in between all these parents, you know, I think that is, um, what the filmmaker is spending a lot of time here setting up. Is this other layer of dynamic, right, between the parents and how they’re gonna deal with it, and the potential conflicts that are gonna happen there, uh, in their approaches. You know what I’m saying?  Craig: Yes. And I agree with you. And I don’t, I thought that all of the actors in the movie were terrific. I thought that they nailed their performances. I didn’t, I’m not sure I cared. And like, I couldn’t tell if they were trying to imply that Jennifer Nettles and her husband, they’re Catherine’s parents, if they were trying to imply that they were racist? Like it seemed like they were initially, and then that just kind of dropped. Like, like, she says something, uh, Jennifer Nettles is the actress, her character name is Miranda, but she says something to Angela’s dad. She’s like, I didn’t even know my daughter was friends with your daughter, and if I did, this wouldn’t be the first time we were meeting. Yeah. They’re very angry at each other. Catherine’s parents are particularly angry at him, and I don’t really understand why. Or maybe I just don’t remember. I don’t know. No,  Heather: I think you’re right. I think it’s more because they are religious, they don’t know anything about their family, and so now… Oh, okay. His daughter has gotten their daughter into something, and… Oh, okay. That makes sense. Had they met prior, you know, they would’ve… Known more about them and her and yeah, she would never been in this position.  Craig: I think you’re right. That makes sense Yeah, so it’s all it’s kind of all their business I don’t even remember like the order that things happen like I feel like that You know I said they go to sleep and then the next day they’re full out demons the way that that manifests is Angela like pisses all over herself And then, tries to kill her dad, and so she ends up in the hospital. And then, Catherine is at church with her parents, acting all kinds of weird. And when her parents go up for communion, they come back and she’s gone. And, uh, the dad goes looking for her, and she is like, desecrated the communion stuff. And then there’s that moment from the trailer where she walks down the aisle. Chanting like what body in the blood body in the blood or something like that and she’s all bloody and weird So she ends up back in the hospital  Todd: See this is  Heather: where I started to get a little frustrated because I was really enjoying The little bits of them getting possessed me too, and I wanted more but it was like Angela, you know, wakes up, and she does a little bit of weird stuff, and then she has convulsions, and then Katherine gets whisked away from the church, and then, all of a sudden, boom, uh, her dad is putting her in a mental hospital, and I just thought, well, that, it just escalated really quickly. It did.  Craig: Yeah.  Todd: But I mean, what came, you know, these girls, I don’t really think this is unbelievable because, uh, and I don’t even think it was that fast and it escalated that quickly because these people have no idea what happened to these girls. They’re afraid, I mean, somebody could have taken them, somebody could have sexually assaulted them, you know, the nurse at one point, you know, after they do the examination says there’s no hint of that, but like, what is it? They’re worried about the girl’s mental health and what trauma could they have been through that they don’t know, so I, I would, if I were a parent, I would be. One step away from the hospital that entire time and ready to rush them in to be evaluated or you know to have some professional talk to them at the first sign of. Well them even speaking up because they’re quite not themselves for the rest of the movie So I mean, you know, I actually didn’t I didn’t think that was too rushed I would have rushed my kid to the hospital if they started behaving like that right especially after that and then on top of that I mean, let’s be fair if we’re gonna if we’re gonna compare to the original exorcist Linda Blair pees herself And then complains to her mom, and then she’s basically in bed the rest of the time, and also, you know, flopping up and down in bed, and then weird shit starts happening almost immediately after that. Right, right, but we spend There’s not a gradual  Craig: progression there either. But we spend so much time with her. That’s the other thing, like, there’s so much business before they even get to the exorcism. Like, maybe I’m remembering it through rose colored glasses, but I remember the original. That exorcism went on forever. Like, I feel like it went on for days. And I feel like it takes them days to get there and then when they finally get there, it’s kind of silly. I think  Todd: you do misremember the original because I agree with you, the exorcism feels really, really long because it’s so intense. But there is a lot of the Father Charis going to the parents and the parents not knowing what to do, and then the hospital, and then she’s back home, but then like, I mean, there is a lot of, uh, non exorcism stuff that is nowhere near that bedroom that goes on for a good portion of the movie. I mean, heck, even the opening of the movie has nothing to do with possession or anything, you know? I mean, it’s just different because that is more focused. I, like Heather, I did kind of appreciate a little more of this other stuff, like the pre Exorcism thing, because that’s not how I remember the original. But that being said, I also felt like there was a little more mystery here. Like, in the first one, oh, she does the Ouija board, now she’s possessed. In this one, they have their theory. thing, but we don’t really know what happened, and they’re gone for three days, and what the hell’s up with that? Because we’re seeing a movie called The Exorcist Believer, we, we just know that they’re possessed. And so maybe we’re just a little more impatient, and we figure like we’ve solved the mystery  Craig: already. Not only, not only do we know that they’re possessed, but we know what this kind of possession looks like. So, it kills the anticipation. You know, watching the first one, sure, you go to a movie called The Exorcist, you expect somebody’s going to be possessed, but we don’t know what that’s going to look like. Now, we do. And so, there’s just not, it doesn’t inspire dread. Like, I, I didn’t think the movie was scary. Now, maybe somebody who hasn’t seen a lot of horror movies would think it was really scary, but I didn’t. Uh, the other thing is, and you just, I think, suggested this, the, the first movie is really tight. And this movie is kind of all, there are so many characters, I don’t really connect with any of them. And I think that, in particular, uh, Angela’s dad, Leslie Odom Jr. and Catherine’s mom, Jennifer Nettles, are supposed to have character arcs. But it just happens. Because we haven’t really gotten to know either of them well enough, when they have a big moment at the end, I’m like, okay, whatever. I I don’t know. I don’t know. And then there’s the whole thing with, uh, the nurse Anne, played by Anne Dowd, who is Aunt Lydia on, yeah, on, uh, what is that show? Handmaid’s Tale. And she’s amazing. She’s a horrible person on that show, but over the course of the series she gains a lot of sympathy. She’s a great actress. But here, it’s so bizarre. Like, for, for some reason, the demon in Which, by the way, I don’t really understand this. Is this, I guess it’s the same demon in both of them? Uh, I  Todd: don’t know. Anyway, whatever.  Craig: That’s a good question. The demon in Angela immediately reveals herself to this nurse, who is also their neighbor. Was she the mean neighbor from the beginning? It took me a minute to put that together. But anyway, she says something to her. She’s like, Sister Mary Xavier, You got scraped out like a rotten pumpkin. And then, uh, Angela starts bleeding from her downstairs. So then Anne goes to the dad. Victor. And says, You asked me before if I had ever seen anything like this. Because he had and she said no I haven’t but I read this book and she gives him a book and Then he’s like all skeptical. He’s like, I don’t believe in God and then she’s like well, wait Let me tell you about this and she says she tells him about you know What Angela said and she’s like nobody ever knew that I never told anybody that ever and it turns out that this book that he Gave her is Chris McNeil Ellen Burstyn from the first movie. It’s her book And she wrote this book and then she kind of became the foremost, er, forefront expert on Exorcists. This is so dumb. And, and, and does this, this, like, okay, so I read that this movie is just like the Halloween franchise, wherein they are completely ignoring all of the sequels. But, isn’t this footage that they show of young Ellen Burstyn and the notion that she wrote a book and got famous on it, isn’t that part of the plot of Part 2? Todd: I don’t remember that. I think  Craig: it is. I think it is. Maybe I’m mistaken. I don’t know. But anyway, it’s just a really silly way to get Ellen Burstyn in the movie because she’s, even though she’s never witnessed An exorcism. She’s the top expert.  Todd: Well, I don’t know if they paint her as the top expert on them, but she’s like the pop culture representative because she wrote this bestselling book and had this famous incident happen. So she’s the one who did the talk show circuits and things like that and sort of as an advocate, you know, but, uh, you know, she still can’t, you know, she admittedly has never even witnessed one and she can’t perform one, you know, so. But  Craig: she tries?  Todd: Yeah. But out of desperation. No, but she tries  Craig: to! No, I agree with you Heather, that didn’t make any sense. Todd: But isn’t the idea that… I, maybe I’m wrong about this, but isn’t the idea that you don’t have to be a priest to perform an exorcism? Like you just have to have  Craig: faith. Well, that’s the thing that she introduces. Yeah, she says that um, exorcism is not something that’s limited to catholicism. Every culture from the dawn of time has had ceremonies to expel negative And that’s what the movie is trying to say, too. Like, you know, it’s not just a Christian or a Catholic thing. This can happen to anybody. And, you know, anybody can fix it, I guess. And so I guess that must be what she thinks. Because, well, first of all, it’s important to note that she got all of this fame, but it came at the cost of her relationship with her daughter. She hasn’t seen, she doesn’t know where Regan is. She hasn’t seen her for years because Regan was resentful that… You know, her name got dragged into all of this, and it brought her a lot of attention she didn’t want, so she went off the grid. And, Chris has no idea where she is, and that makes her sad. So, when they, almost immediately, like, she has a big talk, like, she gives a big long lecture about mysticism and stuff, whatever. And then, uh, they take her to see the girls. And she goes and she sees Catherine first, and we see… But they don’t. That Katherine has carved Reagan into her bed frame with her nail. And… Ellen Burstyn immediately takes one look at her and says, She knows who I am. Let me see the other one. What? And so then, he sends her in there alone? Is that how that  Heather: played out? Well, they go and visit Angela first in the, uh, insane asylum. And that’s when they learn that they’re taking care of Katherine at her home. Which I immediately was like, well that’s a terrible idea. Yeah. So they go then to Katherine’s house. No one’s answering the door, but then Ellen Burstyn’s character, she looks up in the window and sees possessed Catherine staring out at them. And so they go into the house, um, and everyone’s scared and hiding and panicked. And so, uh, the dad tries to get. The siblings out of the house, and then Ellen Burstyn continues up the stairs into Catherine’s room all by herself,  Craig: which right, and finds Catherine looking exactly like Reagan. Catherine speaks to her in the demon voice and says, like, Are you looking for Reagan? It’s just so it’s the ties are so tenuous  Todd: and but it’s the. It’s the idea that she’s faced this particular demon before, so the demon knows her.  Craig: It’s the idea of that, but we’re never really told that concretely.  Todd: I sort of feel like, well, we aren’t. You’re right. We are never told that concretely, and how realistic is that? I don’t know. I don’t know what the, how demons operate in this particular universe. Right, it’s, it’s like  Craig: Jaws 4. Like, Maybe, yeah, right. It’s, this demon has a personal vendetta against Yeah,  Todd: just jumps from girl to girl just to get closer Burstyn. But, but that’s what she meant when she said, She’s seen me before. She didn’t mean the girl, she meant the demon. She could recognize the demon inside Angela’s eyes. And so, when she goes into the room and she sees her, this leads to, uh, When you talk about callbacks to the first movie, this leads to, uh, Catherine running over to the window where she has a crucifix with, that has a sharp point on the bottom. Oh god, I saw that and I’m like, I know, right? Please don’t  Craig: put that in your vagina. Todd: But she stabs her brutally in the eyes, just stabs her eyes out. And I w I thought that was quite shocking. I don’t Heather, you were, uh, you said earlier, I’m sorry to diverge here, but you said earlier, you were very excited to see Ellen Burstyn. In this movie, right? Like, uh, Yes,  Heather: I was I I love I think she’s a brilliant actress and I was so excited that they were bringing back her character for this movie and Oh boy just So many of her lines were they were just such a slog Like they were just so on the nose and well, it was just hard to listen to her. Sometimes there’s  Todd: a lot of preachiness in this movie too. A little too much on the, especially at the end when it’s almost too cutesy and how it tries to wrap up everything in a morality lesson. Oh, that’s one of the  Craig: parts that we both laughed at. That’s funny when we get there now. Yep. Okay. But, okay. I have a theory. I have a theory about this scene because, uh, the demon girl does stab her. In both of her eyes, and then she’s standing there like wailing with blood just running down her face and Victor comes in and gets her out and takes her to the hospital, but I have a theory what I have read now. I don’t know if this is true, but this is what I’ve read the original cut of this movie when they screened it for test audiences. got terrible, terrible response, so they went back in and did a lot of reshoots and shot a new ending. I have a theory that in the original cut, Ellen Burstyn was killed in this moment. Could be. And I think that that would have been more impactful, and I kept, I kept thinking they have to kill her off because there’s no way they can count on her living through making the next one. Todd: Yeah, well she, she almost didn’t make it to this movie, not, not health wise, but she, she didn’t even really want to do it. Right. I understand that, uh, she was just offered a ton of money, and at one point she realized, hey, I could use that money and create a scholarship at the actor’s studio or something, because she’s heavily involved. Uh huh. Uh, in the actor’s. studio. I think she’s like co president right now or something like that. So that’s exactly what she did. She  Craig: turned it down and this, uh, you know, she was approached. They wanted her in the sequel, um, but she wouldn’t do it. Uh, so they had to devise a reason for her character to be away. I think she was supposed to be off shooting a movie or something, but, uh, they, you know, they wanted to get her back from the beginning and she didn’t want to. She had a bad experience on the first one. She was, uh, injured. William Friedkin, did William Friedkin direct it? He did. Yes. First one. And he had, he had kind of like, gonzo directing tactics and, uh, she did not have a positive experience doing it. So she didn’t want to do it. The only way they got her to come back was they gave her an offer, she said no. They doubled the offer. And she said yes, but she donated her, uh, earnings to charity, which I think is really cool. Um, but if you read IMDB, it says… This is the first time she’s back, but she reprised her role in the series. That’s not true! Whoever put that trivia in there is wrong. Because I saw the series, and her character is in the series, but she’s played by a different woman. She’s played by Cagney or Lacey.  Todd: I don’t remember which one! I can never keep those two apart.  Craig: But anyway, she gets stabbed in the eyeballs. And I don’t remember what happens at this point. Like there’s a whole subplot where Anne is trying to convince this young priest. What do we know about this person? Like, it seems like he’s supposed to be important for some reason, but I have no idea why. I have no idea  Todd: why. I think he’s just the young priest who, um, takes an interest in it because they reach out to him because it’s, it’s, well, it’s all the parents, I believe, Victor, Miranda, and Tony, and Anne. They all decide they need to reach out to a priest because that’s what they did in the first case, right? Right. And so they go to see him. That’s right. And then who is it? Chris? Who is Chris? Chris is Ellen Burstyn. Ellen Burstyn. She’s the one who, like you said earlier, had told Victor, like, that any culture, religion, you can do this. And so, they also go and they look for this, they find this root work healer that his neighbor sort of brings over. Which was weird, right? He comes home from wherever he is from work and the door’s open and somebody’s in his house and it’s his neighbor who’s got this woman. Who’s sitting there on his, on the bed of the girl, like, doing some root thing. I don’t know, the candles and some ceremony. And he’s like, who are you and what are you doing in here? And for a brief, brief moment, am I wrong about this? Did he look at this woman’s face and think it was his dead wife? I don’t know. I thought there was a little flash, or hint of that, where for a moment it was her, but then it turned out to be this woman. Anyway, yeah, and then the other neighbors in there are just like, Oh, hey neighbor, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m just trying to help bring my friend over. She’s helped in lots of other situations that I’ve had. He chases them out, but they end up bringing her in as well. So, assembling the Avengers. For this exorcism. It  Craig: totally is. Because is it Ellen Burstyn who talks about church and how like, yeah, church is about going and praising God and celebrating God, but it’s also about community, is it her that says that? Yeah. And, and she’s like, and, and there’s strength. In that community, and so the idea is, we have to get everybody, I guess, who like, loves these girls. Right. We have to all come together to, you know, like, by the power of community.  Todd: It’s the It’s the care bears, you know,  Craig: it takes, it takes a village to exercise a child.  Todd: There you go. Heather: Oh, and they do this like slow mo walk, like down the sidewalk, you’ve got the nurse and the root worker and the Baptist. Priest or the catholic priest and oh my god. I was I was just like what is happening  Todd: right now. There’s the baptist pastor There’s the pentecostal preacher. It’s so crazy But the twist is that the catholic church decides they’re not going to let them do it. I that would surprise me Uh father maddox comes over and is like no the diocese like forbid it. I can’t do anything. I’m really really really sorry But he like hands his um bible over  Craig: to the nurse because she I don’t remember if we said this or not, she had intended to become a nun, but just before she was supposed to take her vows or whatever, she got pregnant and had that abortion. So she is educated in the church. And he basically says, you know, God is in all of us. We all have the power to drive out evil. And he gives her the book. I just thought this is, it’s, it’s silly. Like it’s why he obviously thinks. that it should be done. Like, I guess it’s just his obligation to the church that  Todd: he can’t. Well, you know, okay, it’s a it’s an institution. They’ve got rules. They’ve got to follow I mean that was a big thing in the first exorcist, right? like that was part of the whole plot was were they gonna allow this to happen and they were skeptical that it was a More of a psychiatry problem exorcisms are old like we’re not gonna say that they are not necessary at times But those are very very very Very narrow circumstances and Reagan just sort of barely passed. So I mean, you know, this didn’t bother me to this point I actually thought oh this could be interesting. I like this idea That it’s not limited now just to the catholic faith. Although in all honesty, it’s like mostly christian and one Like, kind of voodoo lady? Ha ha ha ha! Like, we didn’t have like the Hindu in there, we didn’t have the Muslim, you know, we didn’t have even Jewish or like any of the major, major religions represented outside of four different sects of Christianity and one random, non denominational, Haitian sort of, I don’t know, you know? I mean, it just didn’t feel balanced in that way. The concept would have been better anyway if they could have brought in a few, a couple more religions.  Heather: I agree. And that was one of the aspects that I really liked about it. I liked all the different religions and cultures and beliefs coming together. But ultimately the, not to jump ahead, but the Catholic priest still comes in at the end, like a superhero. Craig: Oh my God. That was one of the moments that you and I both laughed out loud. I like the idea of different, because, and I think that this is what the movie is trying to do, but you’re right, it’s not diverse enough. What they’re trying to say is, basically we all believe the same things, we just practice it different. Right. All of the, I don’t know, spiritualists, religious leaders, like the priest, the preacher, the minister, like they all kind of get on board with one another and are trying to work together. Yeah, which  Todd: is surprising. Kind of,  Craig: but the ones who are particularly skeptical are Catherine’s parents, because I think that they’re nervous about stepping out of their Christian beliefs. She comes to a point where they’re trying something, they’re praying, like Anne is praying, she’s trying to do the traditional exorcism. And it’s not working, and Jennifer, Jennifer Nettles, I can’t help but call her that. Jennifer Nettles is like, we have to try something else, this isn’t working. So, it’s obvious that she is willing to do whatever it takes. But the dad is still very reluctant, and remains very reluctant, and I really don’t understand why. But at some point he goes outside. And hangs out out there for a while. And then he comes back in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know. This goes on for a while, but, It’s just not very exciting. I read, I’m skeptical of this, But I read, uh, That Linda Blair was like an on set, Consultant for the girls during this performance and I’m not saying that they don’t do a good job I I these young actresses do a fine job It’s just not as scary to me and I think part of I don’t know. I don’t know Was there what was it CGI?  Todd: I don’t know. For me, it was just too many people in the room. I mean, how can anything be that scary when the room is literally crammed full of people with all the lights on and those two girls in the middle? Like, what are they gonna do that, to any one of them, that the others can’t… Save them from, you know, it’s not the sort of situation like toss Father Karas out the window kind of deal, right? Right, you know that you get and I mean it just feels so intense and so dangerous For that one and two people in the room in the original and this just doesn’t compare and there’s so much stuff happening and people coming and going and In the midst of this. So I think that’s what it is. It just, it’s so diluted. And then the girls come in and say some scary things every now and then, which I did find freaky because I, again, I was still into the movie here because I thought this could be interesting. Like what new fresh horrors can these demons who seem so in control and so one step ahead of everybody. And so up in everybody’s heads in their own way due to this room full of people. And the answer is not.  Craig: No, they don’t do much of  Heather: anything. Well, and one of the big things is, so the girls are hooked up onto monitors and their hearts are beating in sync. So it’s like the demon is in control of both of them at the exact same time. But yeah, the nurse is there and she’s got her metal crucifix and she’s doing the, the Catholic exorcism. But the, the. Crucifix gets too hot and she drops it and blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. And then the root worker comes in and she’s blessing water and dumping it on them. And that feels like it’s really working. Yeah,  Craig: it looked like they expelled something out. Yeah. But, but like something came out of them, like some kind of like ghost vapor or something. But then somebody like. The mom is like, is that it? And she’s like, no, that’s just the beginning. But, uh, the beginning of what? Like, uh, well then what just happened? Was that like, just like a, a burp? Like, I don’t know. But there, there’s, there’s no explaining it. And, and maybe I want too much. Maybe this, other people don’t find it necessary. But we don’t know why this demon is here. What does it want? Like… We  Todd: don’t know the rules. Yeah, we don’t know what’s… Just like the first one, we don’t really know why it’s there. It could just be, this is what demons do. Sure. And she was unlucky. It’s kind of the same here. And Joy’s toying with these people and playing with these people. But in the first one, there also, there’s just this sense that the demon has a kind of goal beyond the girl, right? It’s almost like… Father, the way that Father Karas gets pulled into this and the way that it is drawing out his insecurity and really doing the mind games. With him? Yeah. Um, really getting to the heart of the matter, you almost feel like this was its purpose all along. This guy was fated to this thing. Right here, we got too many people for that to be the case. Even still, the demons are still taunting these people and pulling out their secrets. Like, for example, Victor. We kind of assume, because the gir the his daughter’s the alive one and his wife is dead, that he chose to save his daughter, uh, at the beginning of the movie instead of the wife, uh, when he had to make that choice. But the demon comes in and says, You know that you didn’t want to save your daughter, did you? You wanted to save your wife, and your wife just died, and your daughter ended up being alive. And the way that he plays with that, with their guilt, that is something that was Key to the original movie and started to really do here plays with the nurse’s guilt with her as the nun, uh, and failing there. And, and, you know, she’s got something she’s trying to prove through this as well. That’s kind of her arc, you know, Victor’s arc is to come to belief the, I feel like the Catherine’s parents arc is to kind of come out of their perhaps judgmental  Craig: shell. I think that, uh, the mom, I think Catherine’s mom’s arc is supposed to, she learns. Empathy. Right. Um. Right. Because, ultimately, the, the demons give them an ultimatum, and this is so dumb, like, why? I don’t believe for a second the demon would say, would do this, because, I don’t know, but we’ll get, but the ultimatum is, you all. One girl lives and one girl dies, and you have to choose. Victor and Miranda, Catherine’s mom, look at each other, and he says something like, I can’t choose. And she says, we can’t choose. Up to this point, it seemed like she would do anything to save her daughter. But at this point, I think it’s supposed to Like they  Todd: were on the same  Craig: It felt like it was supposed to be a revelation for her, but there wasn’t enough buildup to it for it to really pay off  Todd: anything. Yeah, it couldn’t be because, yeah, you’re right. Because we, we just had too many characters to worry about. Well, and we never  Heather: saw her in another light. Like we only see her as this concerned mom for her daughter. And so. Which I think was absolutely appropriate, right? So like, I never saw anything else about her to say like, Oh, she’s a bitch, you know? To play  Todd: devil’s advocate here, that’s kind of a good thing, right? That she didn’t come across as a one note character, but had some empathy there. So like, you kind of see why, you know, ultimately, none of these parents want their kids to die. Nobody wants the Sophie’s Choice situation. Nobody’s willing to ste Thank God nobody was willing to ste step up and do it. And I just saw that moment. I didn’t really see it as a turning point for her character, but I just saw it as a moment where it was made clear that the two sets of parents were in solidarity. Whereas they had been bickering and fighting before that, you did kind of wonder if one was prioritizing their daughter over the other and cared more. At that moment, they made it clear to each other that we are not going to choose, neither one of us. That’s how, that’s how I read that  Craig: moment. Well, right, but they’re on the same page, but Dad is around the corner, freaking out. And that’s when, you know, a lot of stuff… Oh, we skipped the superhero entrance of the priest. Like, something goes wrong. I don’t remember what, but something goes wrong. Angela’s  Heather: dad has to go empty the bowl of, like, devil… Water.  Craig: Yeah.  Todd: That’s it.  Heather: And so, he goes outside, and he… Dumps it in the sewer. And I was like, well, there’s the start for part two. But then he sees the Catholic priest sitting in his car praying and he walks up to the window and taps on it and says, Hey, the fights inside. And that’s when the Catholic priest finally. Gets up the nerve or decides that he’s going to go against the church or whatever to go inside and help and  Craig: like a  Todd: rock star. I know I thought this was such I love actually I thought this was a brilliant part of the movie. It was a big joke. You know he comes in like a rock star and you think okay just like in the original. The Catholic Church has taken control here, and they’re gonna save the day. And it seems to be working. He’s got his hands on both of those girls, and they’re really reacting strongly against him, or at least they appear to be. And then, in another throwback to the original, again, in a way I thought was just brilliant, he gets the head twisting treatment. Craig: Yeah. But it breaks his neck and kills him, and you’re right, I think that this was an intentional joke, and to me it was just really tonally uneven. Like, this, this hasn’t been an intentionally winky movie up until this point, and then this seems like intentionally jokey.  Todd: Well, I don’t know. I don’t mean like jokey, like har har, like we just made a funny, I almost mean it like uh, Like, we’re subverting movie convention here. You don’t expect him to die, and then the build up of this scene is like, Oh, he’s this is how the day gets saved. Uh, and then, Eh! Sorry, you’re wrong. And and again, it’s like, I think it’s it’s almost like, Wipes the slate clean again, And brings everybody down to a level of despair. Like, even I’m sitting there, I’m going, Well, shit, what in the world are they gonna do? Ha ha ha ha, you know? Yeah, it was  Heather: in that moment where I was like, Well, what can’t the demon do then, you know? Like, he could kill everybody in the room right now, so then…  Todd: But isn’t that, isn’t that the central question? Like, this has always bothered me about the original Exorcist. Like, this demon can throw shit around, he can stab anybody he wants, he can, I mean, he can, he can make her float. He can make the whole house fall in. Why isn’t he? You know, what is keeping him from doing that? So I felt like that was consistent from the first movie. That was part of the horror of it.  Craig: I think it’s because this is just occurring to me now. I think that the demon does have an end game and I think it wins. Oh, yeah. So ultimately, I think it it it’s leading. to a climactic moment. I mean, it’s the climax that the demon wants. I feel like it’s at this point that both girls start pleading with their parents. Pick me, pick me. I don’t want to die. It’s very heart wrenching, and I couldn’t imagine being in that situation. And frankly, I would probably pick my kid. You know, when all’s said and done, I’ll feel terrible that that other kid is dead. But, mine’s not. Mmm. And so, I, I, the, the, the climactic moment, like, they’re both pleading, everybody’s saying, uh, you know, don’t touch them. Angela, for some reason, starts levitating. She’s floating in midair. Well, and Catherine, like, it’s like Catherine is trying to levitate, too, but she’s still bound in the chair, so her body’s just, like, putting pressure on the ropes. At the height of all this craziness, the dad bursts in from around the corner and says, I pick you talking to Catherine, I pick you and the mom’s like, and the, the crazy shaking and everything gets more intense for a moment. And then Angela crashes to the floor and everything stops.  Heather: Oh yeah. And Catherine wakes up  Todd: and she’s normal. Angela’s flatlined on the machine. And then we get a shot in Angela’s head, I suppose, of her back in that corridor. No, that’s Catherine, right? Am I getting the names mixed up? You’re right, Catherine. Catherine is the one who flatlined, yeah. Catherine, uh, in the corridor, uh, and it’s like she wakes up and she’s in this place again, and she’s like, Mommy? Daddy? Where is everybody? And you hear this, I choose you! And she screams no and she gets pulled down into the water. She’s basically being dragged to hell. I thought this was a freaking bleak as hell ending. I just, I had an emotional impact for me. I didn’t think it was silly at all, but, uh, that was just how I took it. I did  Heather: not expect one of them to actually die, so that… That was surprising  Craig: to me. I did. I didn’t think they were both going to make it. I thought that that was going to be, oh, they’re going to be shocking. They’re going to kill one of these girls. Um, I didn’t know which one it was going to be. And there’s that moment and then she dies. And then there’s also, I think it’s kind of at the same time. Victor is also having flashbacks to when they were in Haiti and his wife was pregnant. I failed to say that while she was there, a Haitian, like, medicine woman or something had blessed the baby. I don’t know, were we to believe that that somehow… Protected her? Helped to protect her? I don’t know. Because in the end, like, in the end he runs and he grabs that scarf and he puts it on her, I mean… This, I’m jumping a little bit back now, but he like, he’s like, I know you’re in there and your mom loves you and I love you and I want you and you kind of see her, but then that’s when the, the dad picks the other girl. Um, but anyway, she wakes up and is fine. And then she goes back to school. Uh, one of the, the thing that I liked was as soon as, when Catherine dies, and the mom and dad are both wailing over him, the pastor says, you were tricked. And I like that, because that’s what demons do, and that’s what the devil does. You know, they, they trick you into making a wrong decision that’s gonna have terrible consequences. Yeah. And it, and it does, and I feel bad for them, like, then we just kind of see a montage of the aftermath, like, Angela’s fine, she goes to school, she looks wistfully at Catherine’s empty chair, Uh, it looks like Catherine’s mom and dad, it just shows he’s sitting alone in a diner, and then she comes and joins him. I get the impression that their relationship is not going to survive this. Yeah. Is that  Todd: it? Well, then there’s some preaching No, there’s  Craig: Yeah. God. Then, okay, so then, it ends, this, and I knew this, we see, uh, Ellen Burstyn, you know, with bandages over  Todd: her eyes. Yeah, go ahead. Before that, we get that preachiness of the, um, of the nurse who’s, who’s talking to, who’s she talking to? Somebody random about what evil is? I think this was a bit in the trailer  Craig: as well. She was talking to the, like an investigator? Yeah, I think like a police  Todd: investigator. And she just kind of brings it up offhandedly. You know, you know what I think evil is. And, and it’s like the, it’s the loss of hope or the, what the devil wants is for people to lose hope and, uh, don’t lose hope guys. You know, that was kind of like, There’s, there’s always,  Craig: there’s always hope. Cut to Ellen Burstyn.  Todd: This was so trite. I, man, if you could cut out the last 10 minutes of the movie. And improve it tremendously, I think. This,  Craig: this last scene, I, again I read, I, I can never say with any 100 percent knowledge if these things are true. Um, but this ending was put on In post, because, uh, you know, for fan service, basically. So, uh, Ellen Burstyn is sitting, you know, looking, not looking out the window because her, she has no eyeballs. Um, so she’s got gauze over her eyes. And the door opens, and we don’t see who is coming in, and I turned to Heather and I said, I wonder who it could be! Todd: Probably just a nurse checking to see if  Craig: everything’s okay. And, uh, she hears, whoever it is, and she says, Victor, is that you? And a woman’s hand grabs her hand and starts to kneel, and it’s Linda Blair. She says, No, Mom, it’s me. The end. And IMDb is rotten because they have Linda Blair billed second in the cast of this movie. So, no surprises if you go to the IMDb page. Thank God I was surprised.  Todd: I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was going to be in there. Well,  Craig: I read, again, I think I mentioned it before, but I read that she was initially disinterested. And, and she, uh, said, uh, because people were approaching her, asking her if she was a part of it, and she said no. I am not a part of it. I think it was only after the movie was completed, uh, and, and tested poorly that they somehow got her to agree to be a part of it. Yeah, now, here’s another thing. thing that, uh, that concerns me. This is going to be a trilogy. It doesn’t make any difference how well this movie performs because they paid so much for the rights to do it. And so they are contractually bound to make all three movies regardless. Where does it go from here?  Heather: So in the first Exorcist, we learned that the demon’s name is Pazuzu, right? Right. Yes. So, yeah, like we know. The demon’s name, we know why it’s there, and unless there is some big, ultimate force that we’re fighting, like, every movie is just gonna be the same.  Todd: Three girls. Ha Right. I think this demon had a different name, I think it was like Lamashtu, or something. Oh, I don’t know. I never heard a name either. It was a Blanket or You Miss It thing, I read about it later, it was on Wikipedia. Oh,  Craig: yeah, because I didn’t notice. I kept waiting for them to say Pazuzu because I wanted to know. I mean, you know, we’re talking about demons, and I think that if Pazuzu can know all of the priests from the first one, he can know all of his backstory and his stuff with his mom and stuff like that. Presumably any demon can do that. So I, whatever, I don’t care. I was curious. Um, but, but do we continue  Heather: following? And are we supposed to assume, like, Ellen Burstyn’s character was, like, tied to the possessions? Because during, like, the exorcism, they kept flashing to her in the hospital, and she’s waving her hands like she’s feeling something from it. Craig: Yeah.  Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. Typical horror trope, isn’t it? Like, she somehow just senses that things are going wrong because she’s had some prior experience with this before, and she cares so much about them. Yeah, I don’t know. I kind of feel  Craig: like, I don’t know, I kind of feel like the only… Unless they’re gonna continue to follow Angela, which I don’t really… I’m not invested in her, really. I think the only way to do it is to just make another exorcism movie that exists. world. Um, but I don’t know that we need to follow any of these characters anymore. I don’t know what they have to give us.  Heather: The only character I could see them continuing with would be Anne Dowd’s character. Because in this movie, while her character arc was not… Super. But we do learn that her roots were initially in Catholicism. She wanted to be a nun. Uh, she obviously didn’t take her vow, so she turned to the medical field. But she has that moment where she, when she’s getting ready to do the exorcism, says, This is why I’m here. This was clearly what was intended for me and why I didn’t become a nun. So maybe she’s going to… Go off and fight all the demons. Yeah, she’s  Todd: super exorcist. Ha, ha, ha, da, da, da. I  Craig: could see that, you know, um. She’s an interesting character and, and, Yeah, I  Todd: think you’re on to something there, Heather. I really feel like you’re right. It seems like she was developed. And especially with her speech at the end. You know, she was  Craig: definitely. And the movie, yeah, the movie wouldn’t have to be about her. Um, but she could be the tie. You know, that. that ties the world together. I think that would be interesting. The other things that I feel like we didn’t talk about that we should, there were other callbacks to the original two stylistically. The score, um, was very reminiscent of Tubular Bells, and then at the very, very end, when you have the original actresses back together, I think the actual Tubular Bells comes in. Um, it opens with a savage dog fight, which I feel like is imagery from the first one, and They did the quote unquote subliminal demon face flashes, um, at various parts. Uh, so he did, you know, make an attempt to connect, um, the movie to the original. Uh, it just, it just, it didn’t land. Really. Again, I didn’t hate it. I had fun watching it. You know, I, I had fun going to the theater with Heather and my parents, both of my parents, by the way, my mom hated it because they killed Catherine. Like that was just that. That was a no deal for her. My dad was like, It was good. He got, when I started complaining about it, he got kind of defensive. He was like, well, it’s never going to be as good as the original. And I agree. I agree. Like that’s, that’s a reasonable defense. It’s not going to be as good as the original. If you can get past that and you can just enjoy it for free. fun, you know, especially right now. It’s October. It’s in the theater. Go see it with a group  Todd: of people. I tell you what, I think if you would call this movie the possession of Angela and Catherine or whatever, I think it wouldn’t be up to so much scrutiny. I don’t think people would have so many complaints about it. I agree. Just. Kind of internally, like all the things that we’ve talked about, it’s not as scary as it could be. It’s not as scary as the original was. It doesn’t have that same impact because of all these reasons that we’ve just described. But I enjoyed watching it. I thought it was fun. I don’t think that… At its core, it w