Welcome to the Land of the Creeps Horror Podcast. I'm your host Greg Amortis calling in from North Caggy Lackey. That's North Carolina to all you Northerners and you're listening to episode 423.
Baby. And I am super excited. If you're new to the show, welcome. Each and every other Tuesday, you get to hear us ramble about horror movies. We might do lists. We might do... whatever but if you're new welcome this is going to be a little out of the unusual and i cannot wait as each of us hosts have chosen a certain director And three movies that we would love to do a movie matinee. crash course or a whole weekend or a whole, uh,
We're going to show them all three back to back to back to back. So there you go. These are the movies that we feel fit from each director. And we could not cross over. So we all have a different director that we chose. So that's what we're doing tonight. So we're super excited. So without further ado. Once again, I'm Greg Amortis. If I didn't say that, I can't even remember because I'm old. But anyways, let's welcome outside of Philadelphia, PA. It's Mr. DVD Infatuation.
as well as a million others. He is the Encyclopedia of Knowledge himself, Dr. Schott, Dave Becker. What's up, Dave? Greg, great to be here. And then you believe it's been three, is it three years now since you guys came up? Yeah. Yes. Wow. Three years ago, I knew it was opening day of baseball. It was. And right now, we're already sitting at what? Like some teams have like eight and four records or something. You know, so the season started a couple weeks ago.
They're just getting earlier and earlier. Pretty soon they're going to need snowshoes to open the season. I've seen one of the games the other day that it was literally snow, and I want to say it was like Oakland. A's or whatever they are now. And you know what? It's awful. I mean, I remember in Little League, like when we would start up Little League, start doing practice in March or April, and if it was cold, When you and we had aluminum bats, nothing hurt.
Like hitting a baseball with an aluminum bat in the cold. It rattles your hands. Like you feel like your bones are shattering when you do that. I remember in practice like. And the guy was throwing them, lobbing them underhand. I would swing through them just so my hands wouldn't hurt.
I said, this is bullshit. Why don't we wait till it warms up and then maybe we could do this again. Hell yeah. There's nothing worse than getting a baseball in the hand or a knuckle or something in the cold. Well, no, it wasn't even that. It's like the bat rattled. Like the aluminum bat rattles. And when it's cold, it makes your hands feel like they're shattering. Yeah. Like the rattle of the bat. I mean, you know, it's not even like the ball is near it or anything. It's just, and it.
It hurts so bad. I mean, I had two really nice hits. But I literally was like, I think every bone in my hand just shagged. So the next two, it's like the easiest things are, oh, I just swung through them. Yeah. No, no, no. Hey, you're getting better. I'm done. Next guy up. I love it. Well, Dave, this is your episode tonight. This is your subject that you came up with. We loved it, and I cannot wait to get into it. uh it's gonna be exciting dude yeah so let's go ahead and uh go outside of
Toronto, outside of Toronto, outside the U.S. and go into Toronto. Not even Toronto, actually. We'll go into near Peterborough, maybe near Ontario. Just follow the compass north. Yeah, go north. Well, it depends on where you're from. Now, you may be going south or west or east. That's true. That's true. If you're in Greenland or if you're –
hanging around the North Pole, North ain't going to help you. Dude, if you're in North Pole near Santa Claus, please hit me up. I've just really got to ask you a couple questions. But anyways, let's go ahead and welcome in the butcher man himself, Bill VanVegel. What's up, brother? When you were going to say Toronto, that isn't that far off. I'm only about 45 minutes east, so that would have sufficed.
Pardon? I figured you were close because you got to some of the Blue Jay games. I'm within 45 minutes of Toronto, and I'm 45 minutes of Peterborough. Yeah, and talking about snow, I went out this afternoon and was getting some fresh air. fucking snow fell. So it's still... I don't where I live. I don't call the coast clear till the second week of May. yeah right that's how long i have wow but anyways the topic for today i really look forward to
because this is one where you kind of let your creativity go. I rewatched five or six by the director that I have chosen, one of them for the first time. And so I think all of us put some thought into what we were doing. So I really look forward to seeing what we come up with. So let's get the party started. That's right. And to do that, we got to bring in the twisted temperatures to herself. The love of my wife.
Life. The love of my wife. The love of my wife. Green acres. I guess it's supposed to technically be the love of my life, my wife, not the love of my wife, life. but either way it kind of works out it sounds like a tongue twister it is a tongue twister so let's go ahead and welcome in pearl herself what's up love hey everybody i'm excited just as well for this episode but due to the day that it is I have to agree my Facebook memories were blowing up with the trip.
seeing dave and jackie and i was like all i can think about all day long was like That hotel room. Until you figure out that you had to hit a light switch to turn off the heat. Yeah, you turn the light switch off. The thermostat was pulled off the wall. It was crazy. And that was one of the better places in Potsdam. That's right. Thank you, Potsdam. That one had three stars. Potstown rating. Good job, Potstown. Because they can't have a star anywhere else.
But we did get to see the Philadelphia Phillies opening game that night, and they won, so that was exciting. Yeah, the Fanatics. He came in by parachute. It was a hang glider. It was one of the two. That's what I was thinking of today, too. Watching that green thingy, whatever he is. But it was so fun. We got to see the Liberty Bell. Man, we did so much during that trip. Rocky Statue, which was awesome. We got to watch Dave and Jackie race.
Oh, up them damn steps. Yeah. Of course, I had to give her a five-second head start or a three-second head start. She says, you got to give me a three-second head start. And then I still, but I was still like caught up to her. And then I said, wait a second, there's still three more sets of stats. I'm going to screw it. She can win. I can't, I'm done. I can't, I can't make it anymore. It was awesome. And then on my memories on top of that.
I got to go reminisce about the trip in 2018 when I went to go see Pearl for the first time. I saw that. I technically went to L.A. and we met.
Well, I didn't meet. I already knew Pearl through social media. But first time meeting her, and then, man, we was able to just hang out, and we had a great time. That's great. And went and visited Vegas. That's the trip where you thought your car got... stolen yes and it turned out you were in the wrong part of the garage yes yes go back whatever episode that was and listen to that drastic story of
our Hollywood experience oh yeah the P2 we parked at P2 so if you remember the movie P2 that's we parked there specifically because of the movie P2 we knew hey we'll find our car there Yeah, but who would have thought the garage had two P2 sections? Right. But a great time. But all them pictures, because the first three days I was there, I was in L.A. one day, and then we went to Vegas for two days, and then we came back.
Well, the first three days I didn't take or didn't post any pictures or anything. I was just in awe the whole time just, you know, being in tourist mode. You know, you got people messaging you and wanting to know if you're alive or not. So I was like, oh, shit, I guess I probably do need to post some pictures.
So I like bombarding. The last thing we got was you sitting in the airport. Yes. Hey, I'm taking off. Three days later, I bombard everybody with like all these pictures. So anyways, those memories popped up too. So it was awesome, man. It's been a really good day. blame for murdering you no no right but like i said tonight we're going to get into these we each picked a uh a fairly
well-known horror director. And not necessarily all the movies had to be horror, I don't think, but we did want to make sure that we had at least one horror movie in there. So if you did choose one that's not horror, that's fine. But regardless, we got a horror director and we each chose that individual and we could not have them on our list. So it was like if Dave chose whoever, Timbuktu, and he couldn't, nobody else could have Timbuktu.
That's what we've done, and that's the way we're going to roll tonight. We're going to do it in order of Dr. Schott, Dave Becker will go first, then we'll head to Bill, the Butcher Van Vagel, then we'll head to Pearl, then I'll close her out. Uh, and then we'll get to you, the listeners. We had some calls come in, so we'll get to that. So that's the way the show will go tonight. I'll be fun and simple and easy and hopefully entertaining. But before we do that, we got to get to our shot.
Because my mouth is dry. My throat is thirsty. And I got to get me some Jim Beam and honey. in my Utah shot glass. Utah probably already got some snow this week, too, I'm sure. I'll ask Jay. But I got it in that, and it's Jim Beamon, honey. Dr. Schock, what are you drinking on tonight? I have, once again, the coffee sent to me by the Gruesome Twosome. I think it's Taste of San Antonio. And I really like it. As a matter of fact, I'm getting low on the K-Cup.
But I've been enjoying it. It's really good. I'll probably order some more myself. And that's what I have. Absolutely. Well, cool. Bill, what you drinking on? I got a squirty juice and water and mixed in is that energy drink C4. I think you guys have C4. And it's, I think it's purple pop. That sounds interesting. It's a good flavor, I'm sure. Yeah. I usually sprinkle a little purple over my cereal. What? I don't know. Purple? Purple popsicle doesn't really specify a flavor. Usually it's grape.
Yeah, I literally think it says purple. Purple popsicle. We don't know what it is either, but it's purple. I love it. All right, Pearl, what you drinking? It ain't pop. No, not Pop Rocks. I have Flavored Water Peach, courtesy of Walmart. Flavored Water Peach for Pearls. Let's do this.
I remember Pearl in the backseat where you guys were over and we were leaving the balcony and we heard the Pop Rocks going. We're like, what the hell is that? Is something wrong with the car? She gave me that look and she had that grin in her face and she started putting them in her mouth and I was waiting for her.
Jackie and Dave to do that turnaround. Like, what the fuck is going on? But remember, they were, like, looking at each other. They were looking back and forth. Like, what's that? Like, what's that? And I still kept doing it. Because nobody expects an adult to have pop rocks popping in the back of a car. You instantly think coming out of a baseball game, we're either getting shot because we're in Philadelphia.
Or somebody's jacking the car. Right. And man, I'll tell you what, it was a little white knuckle getting out of there, but. Jackie was no joke. She just cut right across. She just cut everybody off. If you ever want to get anywhere in Philadelphia, just get in the car with Jackie. She'll get you there, buddy. Love that gal, dude. Let's chug this thing now. We'll count it down. Three, two, one, chug. Oh, my goodness. That Jim Beam and Honey is so sweet. Good stuff.
I didn't do it that time, but I'm going to put the Werther's original in the mouth now. There we go. Alright, so cool. so here we go so what we're going to do is we'll head this over to dr shock and let him explain once again what uh, his philosophy was behind this theme and we'll let him take away the director that he chose and what he's going to do with. All right. Well, this is, you know, the one of the shows I had suggested last year that we ended up doing was our all night marathon.
where we picked, what was it, five movies and ten trailers that would play in between each one or, you know, like two in between each movie. And I was thinking, you know, it'd be kind of cool. This isn't quite to that extent. But just pick one director. And then pick three movies that you would play if you were to rent out a theater and invite all your friends over and say, OK, we're going to watch.
three movies from this director. And I almost did pick Timbuk2, as Greg said, but I could only find two of his movies, so I ended up switching up. No, you found Timbuk3. Yeah, right. That's what it was Timbuktu. And I didn't realize he got that name from he only directed two movies. Yeah, that's right. But anyway, yes, the dad jokes are rolling strong.
Anyway, so that was my thought process here. And the director that I chose is David Fincher. The reason I chose David Fincher was I wanted to go back and watch. what they called the extended version of Alien 3, which is his first movie. He completely disowns it. He did not have a good experience making it. I think he was brought in. It was his first film. He had done music videos and up to that point, just to give you a little bit of background on him.
I was sort of looking into Mr. Fincher and his early career in the 80s when when he would have been. Oh, God, he would have been. In his early 20s, very early 20s, he worked for Industrial Lights and Magic. You know, he had worked with George Lucas. on, what is that show that he had done? Oh, Twice Upon a Time. It was an animated.
Well, he was a visual effects producer on that. I guess it was a movie, Toys Upon a Time, from 1983. And, you know, George Lucas was part of that. So he was hired by Industrial Ice and Magic. and worked as an assistant cameraman and matte photographer on Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I did not realize that his career went back quite that far. He did leave ILM in 1984. He directed a television commercial for the American Cancer Society.
that depicted a fetus smoking a cigarette. And I do remember that commercial. Wow. And that kind of put him on the map for directing commercials. He got a lot more than... He ended up directing music videos when they were they became they became well, they were at their height. Back then, I mean, he was he was doing music videos for Madonna, Aerosmith. you know, a lot of the heavy hitters back then. He did a
He directed Aerosmith's, the video for Aerosmith's Jamie Got a Gun. He did Billy Idol's Cradle of Love, Express Yourself by Madonna. He even did Michael Jackson's Who Is It? So he was a big guy. He was one of the big directors of music videos. He was working with all the big stars back then. And it was that that, I guess, caught the attention of 20th Century Fox, some of the people of 20th Century Fox. and they brought him in to direct Alien 3.
In 1992, the third entry, obviously, starring Sigourney Weaver back once again as Ripley. And to give you a quick synopsis. of Alien 3. All right, Alien 3 again, 1992. Returning from LV-426, Ellen Ripley crash lands on the maximum security prison, Florina 161. where she discovers that she has unwittingly brought along an unwelcome visitor. As I said, I watched, this is the first time I watched the extended version of Alien 3.
It's not called the director's version, even though they took the note. that david fincher had with him in the editing room and what he wanted to do and you know the fact that the Because this version is two hours and 24 minutes. Now, the theatrical version is an hour and 55 minutes. So they took his notes. They asked David Fincher to participate, and he basically said, Fuck you. I want nothing more to ever to do with that movie. I'm not helping out. No.
I've moved on. I will never think of that movie. He's even quoted as saying nobody hates that movie as much as I. Oh, wow. From the experience that he had making it, I'm sure more than anything. What happens is it opens up where aliens left off with Sigourney Weaver. And Newt and Michael Biehn's character, they're all still in the stasis. But you see that there's something else on the ship. And it ends up crash landing on this prison planet. or at this prison facility on this remote planet.
Clemens, who was a doctor, comes across it. He actually rescues Ripley, who had made her way out of the wreckage. Unfortunately, nobody else did. That is one of the reasons that James Cameron is especially unhappy with this movie. He considered it a slap in the face. that they ended up having only Ripley survive from that ship. And there's even a pretty intense scene where they do an autopsy on Newt. because Ripley notices something on the ship near Newt's stasis chamber that looks like acid.
As I go, oh, I've seen that before. So maybe we need to to check out Newt. And she might she might have a parasite is what she says to Clemens. Anyway, it goes on that, yes, it turns out that there is a xenomorph, and it is a combination. Now, in the first movie, I think it was a combination. The xenomorph grew inside a doll. in the theatrical version. They changed it for this version. It was in an opera.
It was in a dead ox, but it moves like an animal in this. And Sigourney Weaver says, you know, Ripley says at one point, I've never seen one that moved like this. Well, neither have we, and it's because the effects aren't as good as they were in the other two movies. It's not CGI. It's not CGI. It was a puppet. It was like a rod puppet that they used.
at a scale and then they would superimpose it onto the film. So it looks almost like it could be CGI, but it's not. And when it's running, it just doesn't look as good. They do have like the creature effect. And what happened was H.R. Geiger went back to the drawing board and came up with a different style xenomorph that would have that would have gestated inside of an animal. as opposed to a human, that it would look different. And he did create a different look to the creature.
You know, did something a little different with the spine and the legs are a little thinner, a little leaner. But anyway, when when the creature is is standing there and when it's doing different things, it looks. good. And in this one, because it's half animal, it tears people apart. It doesn't just kill them, it tears them apart. And I thought that was an interesting choice to make as well, you know, switching it up that way.
Now, the two hour and 24 minute version, it's funny as I'm watching and I'm saying, boy, this could be tightened up a bit. And I'm thinking, well, you know what? They did tighten it up with the hour and 55 minute version. The problem is they didn't tighten it up correctly because this movie. answers, there are several characters in Alien 3 that they're there and then they just disappear and you never see them again.
This movie shows you what happens to those characters who just disappear and you never see them again. Part of the problem was there were so many people in that prison that sometimes you could lose track of them. You follow it a little bit better in this one, you know, with the extended scenes. But it's still it's still it's a little too long. It's a little too much, especially in the in the midsection there.
This isn't the type of movie that you're going to get character development because the characters are the same from the start to the end. I mean, these are guys in prison. You know, they're not going to have big, you know, they're not going to, there's not going to be a bonding there. There is in a way toward the empathy. They've already had this tight knit group, at least in this version, you know, and it.
Charles Dutton, who brought them all together. Charles S. Dutton, who at this time I think he was big in the show Rock, which I always liked Rock. So I like Charles S. Dutton in this, and I think he gives a tremendous – as a matter of fact, everybody gives a great performance. Charles Dance, who plays Clemens. He says he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
And he delivers a great performance. Brian Glover, who plays Andrews, who is the warden of this facility, many people will recognize him as The guy in the pub at the beginning of an American werewolf in London when they say we've got to help him. And he's like, no, you know, this is the one who's basically saying, no, no, we're not going to we're not going to help him. Yeah. And Pete Passethwaite shows up in here. And I always liked Pete Passethwaite.
He plays David in this. I remember him as playing Giuseppe Conlon, Jerry Conlon's father in The Name of the Father. in which he was nominated for an Oscar for that. And he's been in a number of things, but that's what I always think it would be possible. But I always like it when he would show up. I mean, he's passed on now, unfortunately, but I always like it when he'd show up. And we get Lance Henriksen back playing two roles.
One, he is a bishop. Now, the bishop in this, though, it's not Lance Henriksen in makeup. They didn't like the look of that. They went completely animatronic. for when Ripley reanimates Bishop, brings him back to ask him some questions, to access the escape pod's computer and find out what happened. during their stasis, what actually went down when they were all asleep.
And Bishop, you know, the robotic Bishop or the android is basically able to access that and tell her what she needs to know. But he does show up again at the end, and I'm not going to get into that. I don't want to get into spoilers, even though the movie is very old. Ultimately, though, I think you see the extended version sort of, um,
It emphasizes the problems you might have had with the first one where you don't get quite as much of the Xenomorph. And of course, this is Blu-ray. So it's even better. You know, it's a higher quality image. which means that the weakness in the effect shows even more. But again, it's not CGI. They did use some CGI for this, but it was mostly for like explosions or different things. It wasn't so much for the xenomorph itself.
That was done, they said, with like this rod puppet and just then they would superimpose it over and it just didn't. Didn't look quite as good, unfortunately. It did move fast. But the last sequence in this where these prisoners, the ones that are left, are trying to lure it into the ironwork. so they can pour this molten lead over it and kill it. um is really really exciting i liked that a lot i loved those sequences
As because then Fincher went to like an alien POV, you know, like a xenomorph POV where he's running and chasing these guys. And then the image is sort of. almost like a fish-eyed lens type thing as he's running through this, chasing these guys, running through these tunnels and getting shut, you know, the doors. They're shutting it in to lock it into this one area. so that they can get it where they need to pour this molten lead over top of it.
And of course, the company is on its way. They want they don't want anything to happen to the Xenomorph. They want a cap. They want to bring it in top priority. Anyway, I I've always liked Alien 3. I got to say that with the extended version, I like it a little bit less than I did before. Like I said, it's just a little too much in there. And I don't know how much of it is actually Fincher's.
They said it was his notes in editing, but it was taken away from him. So we don't know what other cuts he might have made. It does change the story and it changes the last scene of Ripley's ultimate fate. Let's just say it has to do with falling and something happens in the theatrical one that is not in this one. And I'd like that they kept it out of it in this one.
Anyway, that was my first one. I started off with Alien 3. And then I'm going to get into Fincher's second movie. I would follow it up with that, which is Seven, which I think is just... crime thrillers uh seven um and it is about a serial killer you know you have these two cops a veteran or detectives i should say a veteran played by morgan freeman he plays uh somerset and a rookie mills played by brad pitt and they're teaming up their partners to try to track down
This killer who is taking people out using the seven deadly sins as his motives. He takes out an obese individual by making them eat themselves to death until they're. until their intestines blow out of their stomach and yeah There's a woman who, I guess, vanity cut off. He said the only way that she could survive is if she cuts off a portion of her face or something.
And she decided not to do that and just die instead of being deformed. So it's like this guy is sort of he's focusing on the seven deadly sins with his victims. And I thought that was very that was a very interesting way to do it. And then he does eventually we find out who it is. He does surrender himself. uh to these two policemen um i love the atmosphere of this it feels almost like a film noir with like the when it's raining you got the wet streets there and you got these cops
you know, tracking this guy down and they're very different. You have Morgan Freeman, who's, you know, he's been there a long time and he's sort of by the book. And I think he's sort of, he's getting ready to retire. You have Brad Pitt, who's this brash youngster. And you get to meet his wife, Tracy Brad Pitt's wife, Tracy, played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
And it's so funny because there's a scene where her and Morgan Freeman Somerset sort of bond. At one point, they start laughing over over Mills, over one of his idiosyncrasies. And they have like this moment together. which I thought was pretty cool. Kevin Spacey is so good in this as, well, he is basically John Doe. He is the one who surrenders. uh for these killings um and you know obviously kevin spacey's uh had a decision you find out he's not maybe not the greatest guy but
Uh, as far as performance, he gives us such a strong performance in this is John Doe and those scenes later on. Um, because as he's talking, he's like, Who have I really killed? This fat pig who's just eating himself to death. A woman so vain that she would let herself die instead of having a disfigurement. And you start to say, you know what? You kind of see where he's coming from.
you kind of see what he's doing i mean you don't certainly not condoning murder or anything but you say okay we understand why he's doing it why he targeted the people that he did But then something happens at the very end of this movie that is just made it like everybody.
I think, what's in the box? You say that and everybody knows immediately what you're talking about. Again, without going into spoilers. I didn't get a chance to re-watch this one, but I've seen it several times. And it really is for a second film, for a sophomore effort. which as far as David Fincher is concerned, it's his first film because Alien 3 is not his.
It's just a masterstroke. It is so good. And, you know, before I get into my next film, I should turn it over to you guys if you have anything to say about either of the first two that I've been talking about. I apologize for not including you earlier. No, I'm enjoying your theatrical watch.
A couple years since I've seen Alien 3, big fan, but I don't know that I've seen the version you're talking about either. I think I've only seen the, basically what I'd call it, theatrical. I think it's worth seeing one. Because it answers the questions of, hey, why did this character just disappear? And, oh, and, you know, he changed it up. He changed up, you know, that it didn't grow. The xenomorph did not grow inside a dog. It grew inside an ox.
instead and that's a pretty cool scene when you see the Xenomorph sort of I guess emerge from that uh and there's a whole thing at the opening with where um you know charles dance goes out and finds him i think that was added as well which is really cool because it gives you an idea of this the way this planet is this this uh this prison colony. And I always liked Charles S. Dutton. Like I said, I love him in this movie. I love his character in this movie.
I love the fact that you have these are mostly prisoners who don't give two shits about the company. They don't even know anything about the company. They're not even associated with the company. So they're just like, we got to kill this thing and we got to survive this whole. And Charles Dutton is sort of bringing them all together. He's kept them all together. And he's trying to do that as well with this group of individuals who aren't used to working as a group, to be honest with you.
He's kept them that way. Performances are flawless, I think. No, I would say flawless. I don't think anybody gives a bad performance in Alien 3. Performances are definitely one of its strongest suits. as well as the way that Fincher moves the camera. I mean, the way, this is a guy who has a, you could tell the confidence, you could tell he took everything he learned from making commercials and music videos, and he took it, put it right into feature films.
Some people may struggle with that, but, you know, him, Spike Jones also did the same thing. And they just had this confidence that he just, you know, everyone said that. Charles Dan said when he got on set, he said, David Fincher came right over to him. Here are the shot lists and everything. He said, this guy had his stuff together.
from day one he was there was no intimidation if he was intimidated he couldn't see it at all even sigourney weaver came out in support and she was a producer on this movie And she came out in support of Fincher saying, you know what, I like the movie more than most people do. But I got to say what 20th Century Fox did to him was not right. They took it. They sort of. They should have just let him go with what he was going to do.
So even her as a producer was sort of supporting, coming out in support of David Fincher on this one. And Michael Biehn ended up going after them because they used an image of him. He wasn't in the movie. They just had an image of his character. Yeah. and he came after them and ended up getting paid as much for that image as he got for all of Aliens. He got the same amount of money for that, but then just using his picture in this one. That's right. You go get them, boy. I love it.
And then, of course, any thoughts on Seven from anyone? Seven is one that I haven't seen in ages. I always keep a track on my phone of movies I need to rewatch. I literally just added seven because it's one of those ones that, I mean, I remember watching it in 1994 or wherever it was, it came out and that ending.
we talk about famous endings in genre films. That one is as memorable as, you know, Friday the 13th or Invasion of the Body Snatchers and just for the dramatic element to it. But from what I remember, If I remember correctly, I saw that movie in the theater. And the fact that it always took place in dark, dank places in New York City.
Yeah. It added to the atmosphere. I remember them going into the sloth room and you're just, I remember sitting in the theater going, this is uncomfortable. Yeah. Like it was just. You could smell the rotting flesh and meat from your seat. And it really shows some of the, it doesn't glamorize police work, but it shows some of the underbelly of it. And it's either. a real good advertisement to be a police officer.
or a warning against not being a policeman. Yeah, right, a warning saying, hey, you know, you've got to be a special kind of person to do this. Exactly. So, and I agree. Spacey, I've never gotten into whatever the charges are. I don't follow people outside of their acting. In terms of the performance, I mean.
Is that one stronger than Kaiser Soge? I don't know, but they're both damn good. Exactly. I would put him both because he won an Oscar for that one for, um, for play for, uh, usual suspects and well-deserved in that as well. but he's basically the narrator he's basically we're seeing the story through his eyes he's the one relaying it to the police i mean in that one it's basically an agatha christie film whereas this one is more of a you could have easily put this film in 1978.
Yeah. I mean, you could have seen De Niro and Sidney Poitier. It's interesting because you say New York City. I always assumed it was New York City, but from what I'm seeing, it's like an unspecified city. Oh, it's unspecified. But I always thought it was New York too. It just had that New York sort of vibe to it. It's a major urban center. Maybe it's Toronto, maybe it's Chicago, maybe it's Kansas City. I don't know. But it's, you know, something like that. Right.
But anyways, Dave, continue with number three. Okay. Well, I said, Greg, did you have anything to say about that? I'm sorry. I don't, Pearl. Did you have anything else on that one? No, I'm good. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right, well, for my number three, it actually turned out, as much as I enjoy Aliens, as much as I love Seven, My number three ended up being one I think is absolutely, if not his masterpiece, one of Fincher's top two, I'm going to say two movies.
And it is Zodiac from 2007. That's going to be a pretty intense triple feature, to be honest with you. I was going to say, this ain't one where you get this out later. Yeah, this is when Alien 3 is the most uplifting of the movies. and it's the first one playing um but you know what i just think that these three movies are so strong that um i think you go this is one especially because it's two hours and 37 minutes so it's kind of a long but it flows so well
You know, like unlike Alien 3, where the extended version, you sort of feel the length. You don't feel the length in this one. This rolls so well. And you get once again, you get it's a police procedural. It's it's a it's a it's a detective film. But. It's also you get a newspaper man and a cartoonist played by Jake Gyllenhaal researching this the Zodiac killings of between 1968 and 1983. Well, its first murder was in 68. The last one was in the 70s.
But they kept trying to track it down, this reporter and this cartoonist. And who was it? David Tosche, the inspector played by Mark Ruffalo in this for the San Francisco Police Department, who was the inspiration for bullet. with Steve McQueen and also sort of an inspiration for, not an inspiration for Dirty Harry. The Zodiac Killer, that whole story was an inspiration for the first Dirty Hat. I was going to say, and by the way, one of Ruffalo's better role.
Oh, yeah, I agree. And it's very interesting because Robert Downey Jr. plays the reporter, Paul Avery, and they have several scenes together. And you get to see the two of them before this is like. Before the Hulk Iron Man Avengers team up, we got them in this movie and it literally is a year before Iron Man. I mean, Iron Man came out in 2008 and Downey Jr. with this is 2007 where he played Paul Avery.
And as I said, you had Jake Gyllenhaal as Jake Gyllenhaal, I guess it is, as Robert Graysmith, who would go on to write a book about the Zodiac Killer. Now, what you get in this one is you see. Several of the killings or attempted killings. You get they are reenacted in this without showing us the killer, because one of the big things about the Zodiac killer is it's still not been solved. There is someone who.
They look at as a prime suspect who was most likely the Zodiac killer. They do point him out in this film. They couldn't pin him. But they couldn't pin it on. They ultimately could not do it. Anthony Edwards is also in this as Mark Ruffalo's partner. During these investigations, Brian Cox shows up as Melvin Belli. Such an underrated actor. He really is. Brian Cox is tremendous.
And another very underrated actor, John Carroll Lynch, plays Arthur Lee Allen, who is looked at as one of the prime suspects, if not the prime suspect, as the Zodiac killer. It opens with the July 4th, I want to say July 4th, 1968, I think it might have been. I'm not sure, 68 or 69. I think it was 68. where you see one of the victims and another guy who ended up surviving it.
You get to see them being shot at by the Zodiac killer. And you can tell that the woman knows him. And that comes into play later in the movie. She knows who this guy is. And it plays out so well. It is directed so well. And that's the scene I think of now whenever I hear Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan, because that's the music playing as this whole thing is playing out.
exactly when i hear hurdy gurdy man i'm immediately taken to this scene in that movie and because it's how many how many more albums did donovan sell as a result Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he probably did. I think I could I could see people going out and and downloading that song after watching this movie.
But what it is, so you see that you see the killer, you see some of what the Zodiac does. You see the letters that he wrote into the newspapers saying, you put this on your front page or I'm going to kill seven people. Maybe I'll take out a school bus. which ended up making its way into Dirty Harry with the Scorpio killer in that one toward the end of that film. So you see all of this through the reporter's eyes, through the detective's eyes.
Because then he disappears for a long time. Nothing, no word or anything. But they're still looking into it. You know, you have Robert Graysmith is heavy into it like he's his second marriage is falling apart. And who is it? Chloe Sevigny plays his second wife, Melanie, in this. And we get to see from the first date up until their marriage sort of falling apart because he's become addicted. to uh researching the zodiac killer even when the zodiac killer the police are like look
It's been five years since we heard from him. As far as we're concerned, this case is dead. We're not going to talk about it because it's still an open case. He goes to nobody really wants to talk about the Zodiac killer anymore because it's a dead. Then all of a sudden another letter appears and it gets in the news again in the later 70s. And he's trying to put the pieces together. And everyone's like, what are you going to get out of this? He goes, I just want to look him in the eye.
I just want to look him in the eyes and say, I know that's what he's looking for. And then there's a really intense scene later on where he visits this this guy who. You know, he had gotten this movie poster and they said, oh, the Zodiac killer, the handwriting from the notes matches this poster's writing.
And Jake Gyllenhaal is going to research and it turns out to be one of the most intense scenes in the movie when he's in this guy's house. And you notice the guy locked the door for some reason, just nonchalantly locked the door. And you're thinking. he's in some trouble here And that's really what you get with this movie is there's these these intense scenes, the questioning of the first questioning of Arthur Lee Allen when when you had Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards and also Elias Kotea.
who played the sergeant, the policeman where that murder occurred in that area. You know, because both Tashi and Anthony Edwards are from San Francisco. They get pulled in. When the Zodiac Killer, originally he was shooting couples or stabbing couples or whatever, he just randomly shoots a cabbie who picked him up in San Francisco. You know, it was out in the outskirts of...
California in the in the in the more rural areas where he had committed the original ones. Now he's in the city and shooting a cabbie. He's mixing it up. So there's not a pattern. This is just sort of murder. And him having fun with these notes and sending them in to the police and everything is really what it amounted to.
Just such a great film. I mean, I was just sitting there mesmerized. I couldn't believe it was two hours, almost two hours and 40 minutes when it was over. I was so engrossed in what was happening in this movie. I really think this, I would say this is probably my favorite David Fincher film. And when you think this guy is on Fight Club, The Social Network. The Game, all of these great films he's made.
I would put Zodiac at number one, even above seven. And I love seven, too. I would put Zodiac a little bit ahead of that one as well. I just love this movie. And that is how I would end this this David Fincher retrospect. Nice. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that movie as well. And I thought Gyllenhaal, Gyllenhaal, Gyllenhaal, tremendous, tremendous man actor in this movie.
Such a good one. Pearl, you had any thoughts on that one? I do not. All right, Bill, you got any thoughts on? Yeah, for me, it's in a category of a handful of the top. true crime films and I'm not usually one to watch them because I absolutely deplore glamorizing The crimes. Or the murders. I think they're the scum of the earth. But the way that. Venture methodically went through it. And what he did that was smart was he got some good character actors. Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Anthony Edwards.
These are people that had a role to play and they use them to the best of their abilities. And this coming from a guy who'd only been doing them for, you know, nine, 10 years at this point. This is right up there with some of those films. I put it up there with 10 Rillington Plays and things like that that show the grittiness.
but done well. It doesn't have to be a blood fest. It doesn't have to be an exploitation film to be able to portray killers in a way that are effective and we don't feel sorry for them. And I think that's what this was almost as much of a journalistic police crime series.
Right. As it was a quote unquote thriller. Like this is not the hand that rocks the cradle. No, this is this is like you get the press almost like something like a very different topic, of course, like in All the President's Men where you're following the press corps. as they're covering the story. And you get that with Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal's character. I don't know if it's Gyllenhaal or Gyllenhaal either. I don't know how to pronounce it. It's one or the other.
And then the police procedural with, you know, you follow that and that's just as engrossing. And then watching what happens with. Those scenes where he reenacts with the Zodiac killer, he's not glamorizing them. They're very straightforward. If you think of that one with the couple in the park where he has the girl tie the guy and then he ties her. and lays them down. It is straightforward. It is not dramatized. It is not stylized. It is just here it is.
He saves the style for the other shots in the film, you know, for He's just showing, here's what happened. You get a little bit of stylization at the opening, but I guess he's just trying to reel people in. But not a lot. Even that is pretty brutal. This gets it right, whereas a movie like Carla gets it wrong.
This is kind of in the vein of Summer of Sam. Yeah, exactly. With Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. That's another one I would put right up there. It's all the same flavor. If it's done well, it's done well. But if it's done badly, ooh. Well, cool. There is Dave's triple feature at the movie night. And we had 1992's Alien 3, 1995's 7, and 2007's Zodiac.
Yeah, and I recommend you all go out and get some ice cream or something because you might need to be cheered up after that. But I agree with you, Dave. For two hours and 45 minutes or whatever it is, you're in it the whole time you really are you don't that passes so quickly yeah like normally normally i'm i will beat the table for movies to be 90 95 minutes but this one doesn't seem like a slog at all Not at all. I agree. Thank you. But I do agree. You probably need a...
I'm not one for illegal drugs, but if you want to take ecstasy, you might need it after this one. Well, we'll go ahead and give you the Jay of the Dead scenario. Go to Dairy Queen afterwards and get you a sundae and have a good time. There you go.
You might even see Jay there. You might. You might. Give yourself a peanut butter parfait and, you know. There you go. Give yourself feel better. All right. Well, cool. Well, there's Dave's movie nights. Let's head over now. We're going to take us over to Bill the Butcher. Let's see what Bill's going to come up with tonight. Which director have you chosen and what movies? Oh, I thought I'd go for someone that had an influence on me and it will become immediately apparent why.
So when you think of me, you think of romantic comedies and things like that. No, of course you don't. 10 things I hate about you. You know, I'm usually watching either 50 First Dates or Annie Hall, you know, something like that. But really what drives me...
Yeah. Never been kissed. You know, you know, the notebook, that's my, that's my jam. But you know, when I sit down and I literally did this the other night, you know, I'd had a long day at work. I just wanted to kick back and watch something. I go to Comfort Films, and one director that kind of started, I mean, Brian Scott nicknamed me The Butcher. I'm going to go for The Godfather of Gore. No, sorry, Mr. Folk.
This is Mr. Herschel Gordon Lewis. And Herschel Gordon Lewis, for those maybe who are unfamiliar with or younger and just haven't explored him, he was probably the first director who tried to use splatter and gore and effects. to drive a film. He was never one that was so much caught up on continuity. He was never one so much caught up in making sense of a plot. He was about the gore and how he could push the limit.
of what he did while there is a cohesive storyline of sorts in each of his films he's never been one to have to stick you know to continuity to solve a problem And so he did a series of films. Now, I should say prior to him becoming a horror director, he got into some, you know, pseudo pornographic. roughies where you know women get beat up a little bit and it's some gangsters involved and it's very exploitative
So everything he did, regardless of seeing a boob or seeing blood, it was exploitative. But he did it because he was trying to find a niche audience that would enjoy it. Suffice to say, those theaters in New York City, on the New York City Strip, would have been filled with Herschel Gordon-Lewis films. He was actually I was reading about he was. a copywriter in advertising. And after a series of his films in the early 70s,
He went back to doing copywriting and is in the Copywriters Hall of Fame. I did not know that. I know he was excellent at business because he – toward the end, that's what he was making his money out, speaking about like business and things. Like apparently he wrote a book. That's one of the Bibles of how to be a direct marketer. Right. And he was also a university professor in English. So the man created a lot of, you know, body films.
but at the same time was ultimately brilliant as a businessman. He was a very smart individual. Very smart individual. The documentary called The Godfather of Gore about Herschel Gordon Lewis has One of my favorite quotes to open a movie where he says my movies were a lot like a Walt Whitman poem. They were no good, but they were the first of their kind. Exactly. So I'm actually going to have my three films in reverse chronological order. And so I wanted one that you...
Open up with – oh, and by the way, my theater that we're going to is going to be a drive-in. Oh, nice. That's perfect for this guy. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the first one we're going to go with is 1972's Rated X. This was actually the only film that Herschel Gordon-Lewis did that he brought to the Film Association's ratings board. And it got an X and he basically just said, fuck it, I don't know.
He didn't need them before. He was making plenty of money without their ratings. So why bother? It's not as if he cut out a little bit, you know, the audience would come flocking to it anyways. Right. So the Gore Gore girls, they're all about, they're all like, all of his films are 90 minutes or less. I think this one is an hour 21. It got a rated X.
The description on IMDb is a young reporter enlists the help of a top-notch private eye to solve the murders of a female stripper at a Chicago nightclub. Well, top-notch might be pushing it a bit, but interesting. Gore Gore Girls and all of his films are all based on atmosphere, blood, and just crazy situations. And that's what you're getting in this. Like there is sex involved, but it's not of any major consequence. And there's barely any swearing.
It's all about the blood and it's all about the interesting way. Now, these were done on oftentimes very small budgets. I was actually reading that Herschel Gordon-Lewis, for all his promos for the theatres, He narrated themselves because he didn't want to pay an actor to do it. So he just did it himself.
So in the Gore Gore Girls, you get a strong opening kill where a woman's head is pushed into a mirror and mauling her to death. Okay, this is leading something, but this is in the first two minutes a woman's head gets smashed into a mirror. and it gets bloody obviously and so you're like okay this is what i'm getting myself into And so what happens is there are strippers at a club that are continuing to get killed.
female dancers that the bodies start to pile up club is owned by henny youngman it's nice to see henny youngman you know telling his you know r-rated jokes in front of an r-rated audience But actually seeing him doing some acting other than just a shtick, you know, it was pretty good to see. But I got to say, it had been a while since I'd seen a girl in pasties. It had been a while.
And so by 1972 of the three films I'm going to show you, this one probably had the best practical effects. And there's a couple of really good scenes where one of the methods of killing that the killer does. is he mutilates the brain once they've killed him. You see this. I'm sure he used, I don't know, some sort of fruit or something as the brain because the guy gets his fingers right in and mushes in there once he's killed.
The lead detective is played by, let me look it up, because I think it was his only ever film. It was played by Frank Kress. He comes off kind of as a suave yet quirky lead detective. Colombo, he is not. Spencer for hire, he is not. How about Frank Drebin from Police Squad? He's somewhere between Colombo and Frank Drebin, yeah. it's the he's quirky um it's lewd and it's uh what do i have here oh At one point, there's a bunch of, this is 72, so the female feminism is at its peak right now.
And so there and so Herschel Gordon Lewis plays off that. And he has these female protesters come into the dance club to try to protest the stripping. And of the signs, one of them says it. lewd is crude another one said quit with the tit um and it's all again i got a kick out of seeing You know, undergarments and brassieres from 50 years ago. I don't know how you women put them on. But the killing methods were great. Was the acting fantastic? Not really.
But it's almost got a little bit of a giallo-esque inspiration to it because there are sprinkles throughout the movie for you to figure out who it is, but they literally don't reveal it till the very end. the last three minutes and so if you haven't been paying attention i mean the amount of characters that are in it i mean there's only like eight characters it's one of the eight but you didn't know who it was they didn't give it away
As I said, it was nice seeing Henny Youngman. Now, there's a particular scene involving nipples and chocolate milk. Oh. That that gets me. That is the one scene in this movie that I really cringe and I have a hard time watching. As a matter of fact. One of my favorite commentaries when something weird put this movie out, they have Herschel Gordon Lewis there with a moderator.
And the moderator had sort of missed this the first time around. And when that scene happened, he was like, oh, Horschel, that's horrible. Oh, my God, that's terrible. But what happened was I didn't realize he did it as a joke. One nipple cut and then the milk came out, cut the other nipple and chocolate milk came out. Like you got a variety is what Hershel Gordon Lewis is doing. The problem is the chocolate milk just looks like a little bit of bloody milk.
yeah it doesn't look like it you don't get the joke i i didn't realize the joke until i listened to the commentary and he explained it i said oh is that what that's supposed to be But that to me is just the hardest. That was the most difficult thing to watch in the movie of all the killings. That one really got to me. My note was? I've been known to nibble a few nipples over the years, but never like that. No, right. The other thing I got a kick out of was this was a club in the early 70s.
And when they they had at one point, Henny Youngman wanted to get people in. And the detective was trying to lure in the killer. So what he said was, and this was 1972, put up a thousand dollar prize. And it's amateur hour and the best amateur stripper will get the thousand dollars. Well, what I was really surprised, maybe it was a thing back then, is men bringing their date. and dressed to the nines to a strip club tables drinking champagne three-piece suits women in dresses and
Oh, and let's see Sally take it all off. Wait, Sally! I've seen that in other movies, too, where you see dates at a strip club, and you're kind of like, is that really a... I mean, you know, But Robert De Niro's character tried that in Taxi Driver with Sybil Shepard. It didn't go so well. Of course, that was a porno movie. And it didn't go over so well. I can't imagine saying.
Hey, how about we go to a strip club tonight to your wife or your date? It's furry. Hey, Sally, do you want to go see Sue down the street, take her top off? Yes, let's get all dressed up. Yes. Found it funny. Now, I will say that there is a twist in the ending. And so when everybody...
Always I find on these Facebook posts and things in these various groups, they'll say, give me a good movie where there's a twist. You'll get it here. So it's not you can't say that Herschel didn't put a little bit of thought to it because he definitely did. Is this film going to be for everybody? Probably not. But even for the most faint-hearted, it's not going to blow you away with the blood, but it's all about how Gordon Lewis was innovative in the use of it.
If he had have had $5,000 more for budget, it would have looked much better in terms of aesthetics. But it might not have had that same energy. I really like the way Herschel did it. Herschel, like William Castle. Alfred Hitchcock in to varying degrees were their own self promoters. And that's where Herschel Gordon Lewis.
did with this one the only name honestly and the whole cast you'll know is henny youngman that's pretty much it yeah and he was in for maybe five minutes he's not that long and and i'm willing to bet right now 75% of the audience has never heard of any young man. I'm sure there are a good number of people who have not heard of him. Who are going to be looking him up. He's the take my wife. Please. He was Rodney Dangerfield before Rodney Dangerfield. Yeah, he's kind of, he is the, he is the
earlier version of Rodney Dangerfield. That's a good way of putting it. Yes. So did anybody else want to have any input on the Gore Gore girls? I, this was, I think, uh, Hershey Gordon Lewis's last film for a number of years. I don't think he made anything. they said he quit after this one to get back into copywriting and direct marketing because by that point the gore film had caught on yes and other people were doing it and they were to have a higher bigger budgets and yeah
Yeah, you had all your films that were already being exploitative, and he was like, okay, I'm getting out of it, I'm no longer ahead. And he went back to being a businessman or a professor or whatever. I'm with you. It's the kills you're going to remember. I mean, that's why they put Gore in the title twice. And there is a fairly decent body count.
in his films yeah i mean they're not anybody you're going to know or you're going to care about but you know you could stack them up and you have a pretty pretty good fence oh right Yeah, big fan. Greg or Pearl, you guys have seen it? I've seen it. I don't have much to say because everything you guys pretty much both said, I would have said too. Yeah, I'm a big fan of it too. I've interviewed Herschel back in the day before he passed.
Just always been a big fan. I've got to give a shout-out to Chris Bartoli who gifted Pearl and I the – Arrow box set of Herschel Gordon Lewis that sits up on the shelf up there with all his films. I actually thought of Pearl while I was watching this because of all the cabaret outfits. I thought she would get a kick out of those. And so from there, I take us to probably what I think of is the one that isn't necessarily his most well-known one, but his most fun film.
And that's 1970's The Wizard of Gore. The Wizard of Gore from 1970, an hour 35. It gets a 5.2 on IMDb. The description is a TV talk show hostess and her boyfriend investigate a shady musician who has the ability to hypnotize and control the thoughts of people in order. to stage gory onstage illusions using his power of mind bending. Now, when I saw this film, you know, my head went back to The Mad Musician with Vincent Price, Magician from Vincent Price in the 50s.
This takes it a step further. So what you've got is Ray Sager playing a detective, a magician, Montag the Magnificent. And he's got this. small club it's probably the same club as the strip club to be honest he probably just made it look different And he's putting on a off, off, off Broadway magician, magician show. And what's happening is he's getting people to come out of the audience.
or quote-unquote volunteers, and putting them through various torture devices and killing them in a way that looks the same. And so, for example, you've had one person got killed with blades running. One of them got a knife thrown at them. But what he did is he does it in very extreme ways.
And I think of all the different kills that he has in all of his different movies. This one is probably his most extreme in terms of graphicness. I say graphicness. You watch it now and go, oh, that looks late. you know a piece of fruit and piece of meat and they've thrown some hp sauce on it but for 1970 this one was pushing the envelope So Ray Sager, who played Montag the Magnificent, by the way, was also the co-producer of Hello Mary Lou Prom Night 2.
He produced Prom Night 3 and 4 and a couple of the Spencer for Hire movies. and was the second unit director for my bloody valentine 1981 which i didn't know you know there's i wrote down i didn't put down a lot of notes for this one because i've seen There's a nice graphic slicing of a woman in half in the very first trick.
And it was very, honestly, graphic and brutal for 1970. But one thing that Kershaw Gordon Lewis always had is that brilliant, bright red, the giallo red that looks like it came from your hardware store. So it stood right in. And you literally can see the veins. And you can see the heart sometimes still pounding as these crimes and these torture things are happening. And again, you're not going to mistake this for an autopsy or anything like it's not to that level in terms of.
It doesn't look exact, but... I think given his budget and given his imagination, I think he pretty did a pretty good darn job. There are actors and independent filmmakers today that would still love to be able to do it at the level that Herschel Gordon Lewis did. It's got a really creepy atmosphere. It's got a really creepy score. And there is also supernatural elements to this film because Manteg has his eyes kind of like Christopher Lee does.
where he can look into your soul and control you. Almost a little bit of shining, a little bit of that sort of thing. And so there's also a supernatural ESP kind of element to this. The magic show is awesome. I just put down, where can I get tickets? So graphic, yet everyone is just mesmerized. That's the thing. You'll see a scene where some woman's innards is being cut out. And the entire crowd is sitting there hanging on every breath. You don't hear a woman, ah! You don't hear a guy going, oh!
They're all silent as this is going on. Again, it's an amazement looking at the crowd, similar to the crowd getting in their suits for a cabaret show. For this magic show, they're all just sitting there in awe. And the score is a bit funky at times. Let's just say that. But as Roxette would say, he's got the look. You guys know the Wizard of Gore? I know the Wizard of Gore, yeah. Who was it? It was...
Crispin Glover was in a remake of this, which is I never saw about one. No, I like Crispin Glover in the role, but the movie itself was just just not as as good. And you mentioned Ray Sager, who had a lot of behind the scenes after this. He actually worked behind the scenes for Herschel Gordon-Lewis too, but was a last minute replacement to play Montag when the actor originally hired quit the day before production began.
So Hershey Gordon Lewis went to Ray Sager and say, hey, can you play this? Now, the thing is. You know, and it's the gore. When you go to a Herschel Gordon Lewis movie at this time period, especially one called The Wizard of Gore, it's the blood and the gore that you're expected to see. This one, though, gives you that added bonus of. Ray Sager as Montag. It's not a good performance, all right, in the traditional sense. It is not it's not a good performance.
It's more than just effective. He's downright hypnotic in this one. I mean, he plays. He is so over the top that I couldn't look away. You know, every line that he delivers, he doesn't speak. He shouts. And he has a certain cadence with his voice. Yes, and it works. As you're watching it, you are just glued to this guy whenever he's on screen. Like I said, nobody's going to give him an award. He might get an award for best.
performance in a Herschel Gordon Lewis film. Him and William Kerwin, I think, would be the two main nominees. William Kerwin was always good. The other thing is, this is like the detective in Crystal Plumage. His mustache is a character upon its own. Yes. True. But he is so good. And yes, the gore is what. you know, reels you in. This movie even made its way, it was shown in a scene from Juno, that 2007 award-winning film
Juno and, oh God, the character played by Jason Bateman sit there and watch this movie, sort of bond over it. They just sort of met each other and sort of bonding over this movie. which is pretty cool. But I, I, I'm a fan of this one as well. This is up there for me as, as one of my favorite Herschel Gordon. If there's anybody here that likes seventies or seventies, eighties slashers, you're an eighties baby and you like those things.
Go back and watch this. Because you're going to see where a lot of the inspiration came from. And while it might feel rudimentary, it might be trauma-esque. It might be, you know, fall into a full moon kind of deal. This was the guy that him and William Castle led the groundwork for the independent horror film, him and then Romero of the 1960s, early 70s.
I agree with that. Now, Greg, did you get the chance to re-watch it on the box set? No, I actually haven't watched any of the box set yet. I plan on doing it. I've had so much going on, but I'm definitely going to get into that and break them down. And so finally I went to what the one I think is my most fun, probably in my top, I mean, I've never ranked them all, probably top 30 quote unquote horror films. This isn't really a hardcore horror, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.
And that's 1964's 2000 Mania. It's an hour 23. It's not going to tax your time. But I will say, if you go on to Tubi, it has a brilliantly colorized version of this film it's it's it's it's as good as you're gonna get somebody put the time in i don't know which company if it's a criterion version or whatever i don't know so it the description is
Six people are lured into a small Deep South town for a centennial celebration where the residents proceed to kill them one by one as revenge for the town's destruction during the Civil War. So I don't think they're ever specific as to where it is other than it's Pleasant Valley. I don't know if it's Alabama. I don't know if it's South Carolina. I don't know if it's Tennessee, Mississippi. It doesn't say. But this is you're going deep south and there's this town where.
These cars are driving off the highway, but it's maybe not on the main highway. And then they take a side trip off. And when they go through this side trip off, you're always going to be, you know, Highway 101, you're going to go by towns where you get diners and things. Well, they're driving through this town and all of a sudden the car they're in is forced to stop. Because the town around is celebrating their centennial, and they literally create a human wall that you have to stop.
And so there's two cars. One has four of them in, and then there's another car with two of them. and they are put on the mayor is out there the mayor is played by i can't even know william kirwan and he uh was is it babe you would know better the name of the actor in that film Yeah, I don't know. It's Terry Adams? No, I can't recall. I'm not 100% sure. Anyways, the main actor is the mayor, and he meets them all there, and he's this...
Slightly overweight. Man looks to be in his mid-60s. He's the mayor of town. It looks like something out of Green Acres. Green Acres, yeah. And he's really enthusiastic. And he stops the cars and says, you're all welcome to this new celebration. And you are the center of all the events and the attention. And he basically gets these six people. He says, we're going to put you up in the hotel. We're going to feed you.
We're going to have a barbecue. We're going to have drinks. We're going to have hoedowns. And for this celebration, you're going to be part of everything that's going on. And so there's one for two couples. They look to be in about, I don't know, mid-20s.
There's another car where there's a hitchhiker and a teacher, or the teacher's the hitchhiker and another girl driving the car, and they're all put in this small hotel, and these town celebrations are going to go on. Well, let's just say these celebrations are nefarious. And it really plays on Southern stereotypes. And I really think that in this film, it shows that Herschel Lewis is fairly left wing.
But it shows it in a way that it doesn't make anybody look any smarter or dumber. It's just, to me, honestly, it's fun. I fucking love this. And part of it's because you cannot take it too seriously. The opening music, the song is so catchy. It's like a hee-haw kind of song. And it turns out that Herschel Gordon Lewis created and sang the song. And so he's in on the creative end of it. So drivers get diverted to Pleasant Valley.
for their town centennial, set them up as guests of honor, put them in a hotel and feeds them. There's a car of four where two couples are on their way to Florida and the other couple goes through. It's creepy, yet corny. Southern charm. The mayor is hilarious. The townsfolk are just off. but they're fun. I believe that our good friend Joel could probably find the spots where they take place because
A lot of these places are still in a condition very similar to the way they were shot in Florida. I had heard, and again, I saw this on IMDb, this could be completely false. but that this was shot on land, some of which was eventually purchased by Walt Disney. Oh, wow. Oh, it could have been. The saucer ride is now where the guy took the tumble down the hill. It's a small, small world. I honestly don't even know if that's true.
It's a true story. That's just something I saw on IMDb in the trivia section. Um, but, uh, I'd like to think it'd be pretty cool if it was like, for example, there was one point where they're sitting around having a barbecue, a camp out, the fire's going, they're passing around the moonshine. One guy's getting a little frisky with a woman that's not his girlfriend.
There is one where there's a woman who's brought to what looks like one of those, not rides, but one of those events you do at the amusement park where you bang it with a hammer to see how high you can get it up. Well, she's laying there and there's a rock above her. And you can pretty much figure out what happens there. There's one guy that goes into a barrel that is spiked with nails.
And it's literally rolled down the hill like cheese. Just the kills are one guy is getting to know another girl and he cuts her thumb off. It's just it's bizarre. But. It's fun. It literally is as grotesque as that sounds. They're fun. It becomes survival horror. And again, another film where there's a twist ending. I'm not going to give it away. But there is a supernatural element to it. So say what you want about Herschel Gordon-Lewis.
He did put some thought as to the overall film structure and the narrative. It's kind of the bits in between where I think he just kind of let them go. I'm pretty sure there's some improvisation. But I will say this, the townsfolk are, you know, hick southern kids who, you know, like to just fool around with cars and whatever, whatever.
They do a good job acting because it takes a lot of skill to look and they do a good job of looking dumb. So I would highly advise this. This would not be one where you're going to go with your date and expect. you know, big things happening after the event. Cause you're going to be like, I got to wash my brain out. Don't take a date to this. Take her to a strip club. Yeah. You'd be better off.
Like, I considered Blood Feast. I considered Color Me Blood Red. I watched Monster Agogo. Oh, fucking horrible. monster gogo i didn't even realize he directed that one well no what happened with monster gogo was that somebody had started And at a certain point, they ran out of money. And so he cleaned it up.
I got you finished it off. But what happened was because the years had gone so far in advance, one character who was a brother had to be changed his character later in the film because he didn't look like the same guy in the beginning. It's terrible anyway. But if you appreciate gore, if you appreciate practical effects, if you appreciate movie history, if you appreciate where movies have come from, give Herschel Gordon Lewis a watch.
And that's all I'm going to say. I love it. Great choice for movies, man. I agree. I like this one a lot too. It is fun. And the music. Sets it off. That is awesome. It's like a wide shot of these guys diverting traffic. So that it goes into this town and they're putting signs up and everything. And there's a song plays out and.
And you're right, Hershey Gordon-Lewis performs it and does a damn good job of it, you know? I'm really surprised that like on a TikTok or one of those reels on Facebook, that music hasn't hit the background of one of them. yeah and it's funny you know like um and you know what you can play them in the order you know you as far as going backwards um you know uh I guess in his filmography, chronologically in his filmography, you're going with his latest film and back to one of his earliest.
Because even the Blood Trilogy, it's not a trilogy of story. There's no... like characters or storylines that go from one film to the next. It's just, they're all blood. So they're all gore. So that's the blood trilogy. And it's basically his first three, you could call it a blood quadrilogy and throw the wizard of gore in there. I mean, you know, it, so it.
There's nothing thematically tying them together. The other one I almost chose was Color Me Blood Red. That one is one of his best because of the performance by that artist. And I really like that. And that one I think is one of his most underrated because when you think Blood Trilogy, the first two are that pop in your hair, Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs. But I think Color Me Blood Red is very underrated and definitely a strong film as well.
This is probably of the three. This is the most entertaining. 2000 Maniacs is absolutely the most entertaining of the three. And you do get. the blood and gore there's a scene with a woman um and her she's getting her arm kind of on a table or something and everyone seems to be like all the townsfolk seem to be having a good time with it But it looks pretty damn real. I mean, one of the things he could do is you know you're looking at an effect.
But yet it still looks damn good, especially for a movie that looks like it could have been made for $300, you know? So, Greg, the next time that Pearl says, let's have fun in bed and say, great, let's throw on 2000 Maniacs. Bring on some Herschel Gordon. That's right. I love it. Well, cool.
There is Bill's marathon of movies at the drive-in, he said. The drive-in, yeah. Make sure you get yourself a hot coffee or a cold pop and some popcorn. And at some point, let's all go to the lobby. Yeah, that's got to kick in there. So 1972 Gore Gore Girls, 1970s Wizard of Gore, and then you're going to finish the night out with 2,000 Maniacs, which is going to get you in all kinds of mood to go home and make Hanky Pinky or something.
I don't know if you're making hanky-panky because you don't want to make sure you ended up on a barbecue. Very true. Yeah. Alrighty, so it's time to get in now to the Twisted Temptress herself. We're going to go to her movie watches tonight. Let's see who she chose director-wise and what movie she's got. well you know what my trilogy i decided to rent a few cabins
Put out a huge screen out there with some bonfires and make sure you guys are not only scared by the movies that are going to show, but also by the woods around you. Creepy. I think everyone already knows. That I have chosen Wes Craven. But I have chosen Wes Craven for his blending of horror, suspense. psychological terror and his unexpected twist.
He is really good for storytelling, memorable characters, and ability to tap the primal fears, which I love. His work often explores the blurred lines between dreams and reality. So my first movie that I am going to be showing is 1996. Scream. That's a great one to pull people in with. You have Neb Campbell. Courtney Cox, Dave Arquette, Skeet Urish, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Laird, Rose McGowan, and even Jamie Kennedy amongst the few of the cast. On this one...
It's about a mass maniac with a knife stalks high school students. Some of the students are very well versed in knowing exactly what- horror movies are all about there's a couple of them who even want to make one of their own in one day one of them is a very he has rules let's just say he has rules Where he tells you the first rule is everyone is a suspect. You gotta believe him on that. Well, this murderer is known as Ghostface.
In the opening of this movie, you have a girl making popcorn. She's alone, waiting for her boyfriend. Gets a call and happily answers the questions on that call. She's asked, do you like scary movies? and she's like sure and he's all well i got a couple questions for you And she's like, okay, you know, and starts asking, oh, who was the stalker killer in Nightmare on Elm Street? And she's like, oh, that's Freddy Krueger. And he's all correct.
He's like telling her, now if you get this one right, you know, I won't kill you, you know. But then she mentions about her boyfriend. He thought, oh, I know. And then turns on the pool lights and you see him tied up outside. so now she's frightened running for her life because now she knows that someone's watching her but someone's also in the house and when she when door opens
All of a sudden you see a guy in a full black outfit and only a ghost face mask with a knife running after her. Runs out the door to the most gruesomest first kill within minutes of this movie. she is literally gutted hanged only after before that happening seeing her parents coming back home just a few feet away And that's how it starts. Woodsboro? Woodsboro. Killer. Now you got all of them, you know, they're all, they know one of their own is dead. So they're...
You know, talking amongst each other saying, you know, well, someone had to do this. Someone happened. They're trying to figure it out. You got Randy, of course, the expert of like saying rules, making sure you don't say things like, you know, I'll be right back, you know, or. Never do this, never do that. You got some of the... Nev Campbell, who is... sydney who's very familiar with the killer because
Years back her mother got killed. She feels like he's back again and she thinks it is the same killer. You got Gail Weathers who's aimlessly running after all of them because she's trying to get the story. She don't care what to do, you know, but she knows she's going to be there to get it. And you got Dewey, who's the cop who's kind of, not overly DDD, but he's somewhat there. And of course you got Billy Loomis and Stu where...
Them two are fascinated with the killer, but they feel like, oh, we can figure this out if no one can. You know, they're the experts. They want to make a movie. They're thrilled about it. excited so they're invested in this And, of course, you have Rose McGowan, who's the friend Tatum. Her brutal kill scene with the garage door. You got them all on the run.
still being chased by Ghostface. He is disguising his voice with a a voice box call something happens where like Sydney's boyfriend Billy you know he comes in through the window and he's just there at the right time a phone falls out of his pocket so she suspects him
Because like Randy said, everyone's a suspect. Takes them to jail. And turns out that someone's in the house again. And it is Ghostface. So now she's like, feels... like shit because she's like okay it wasn't my boyfriend so she feels like it is someone else who ends up being caught and weary who was someone who ended up dating her mother
So he's on the loose, being suspected. Continuing on, you know, as it keeps going, the mystery's starting slowly to unravel. They find out that not just one, but two killers. And between this, you know, it's a fight for life. And does she survive? And you'll find out. That's right. So 1996 Scream, I think, is a great choice to open up a theater. I have a feeling this one's going to come up again this year. Yeah. I was going to say, can we count the week?
I just like if you're going to go to a theater and you've got Wes Craven as your the host of the night, you've got to do Scream. I think so. He has so many awesome films, but this is the one that's going to... I mean, the opening sequence is one of the great openings in modern horror. Without a doubt, one of the great opening scenes. Drew Barrymore is so good in it.
You know, and I love how it plays with, you know, it talks about how, you know, Jamie Kennedy's character brings up the rules that you can't do this, you can't do that. There's a great scene where Sidney... is on the phone with the killer, and she's saying she doesn't like horror. You know, it's the same thing. Some stupid girl or some stupid killer stalking some big breasted girl who can't act.
who's always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. And then a few moments later, the killer breaks in and Sidney tries to get away from him by running up. I love that they do like he throws those things kind of in there as well. Even the people who are criticizing the genre do stupid things when they're when they're under that sort of pressure.
Yeah, to me, Scream is the kind of film that when everybody says all horror in the 90s was crap, that's the first one I think of. Not that it's crap. It's the antithesis of crap. It's the one that proved that horror was not bad and it brought it back. And what was it, 96? It had gotten the cycle of the early 90 thrillers. And it really leapt back and put horror back in the forefront.
and that's what I give Wes Craven a lot because a lot of people don't realize you know before that you know if they were a new movie goer they didn't realize that he'd been in the game 25 years like how many people had seen last house on the left and then you know went to see scream it's a completely different audience
So he kind of brought it forward. The other thing about Scream that I always think of is What's the scene with Matthew Lillard where he gets stabbed and he goes, oh, that one hurt, got real close. where the other actor, I forget the other actor, gets him in the stomach and they purposely jab each other. And it's one of the first kind of meta-horrors.
I think my favorite line, Matthew, was, oh, my parents are going to be so mad at me. Right. I was going to say, and he's got a stain in his white sweater that Tide ain't getting out. and another another great sort of meta moment is that in this lying on the couch he's you know by himself in the house watching halloween yeah and it's a scene where jamie lee curtis is you know michael myers is behind her and you have jamie kennedy going turn around jamie the killer's there turn around
And the killer is standing behind Jamie Kennedy. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Great scene. Well, cool, Pearl. There's your first movie. You got anything else on that one? Are you ready to go to your second one? I'm ready to go to my second one because after some fun and thrills and a little bit of violence. Uh-oh. I'm ready to go into disturbing, brutal, and a little gory. Going backwards, I am going to go into Wes Craven's first feature.
directorial debut, which is 1972, The Last House on the Left. yeah teenagers mary and phyllis Head to the city for a concert. Then afterwards, go looking for drugs. Well, at least one of them. But then afterwards, instead, they end up coming across a gang who recently escaped convent. To them, then the night becomes a fight for survival. Ends up being brutal torture. Ends up being some brutal rape.
The gang takes them to the woods where they taunt them and continue to, you know, vandalize them. Not realizing that they're near one of the girls' house, that one manages to get away. When she gets to the house, her mother and father, they see her and it doesn't take long before the parents figure out the identities of the killers and plot their next revenge. This one has...
David Hess, Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, Fred Lincoln, and Mark Shuffer. This one was very, very brutal to watch. It is hard to watch. It gets gritty. You got to turn away at some moments. But still, despite of it all, the ending is what gets you because you see everyone get together and being like, oh, we're not letting this go, you know. Yeah, I picked the wrong family to mess with. I hope that everyone who's watching this will end up liking this.
This is a visceral one to go to right after Scream, you go into this one. This is like, oh my God, like you're in a high moment because you're a fun movie. And then you get this one, you're like, holy. Shit, what on the fuck? I think I've told this before. When I worked at the meatpacking plant, my co-worker, we were talking about scary men. She said, what movie scared you the most? And I said, well, when I was a kid, it was The Exorcist.
She said she could remember the title, but she said the one that got me was these two girls go to the city and one of them and they end up being tortured and one of them gets killed near her house. I knew immediately was the last house on the left. She saw this as a teenager and it absolutely traumatized her. She said it kept her from going to movies for a while. It traumatized her so much.
I think this is one that definitely for the female horror fans, this is one that's really, really going to affect you in a big way. It affects everybody. I mean, it's hard to watch regardless. I mean, I have a hard time watching this one, just as like I have a hard time watching I Spit on Your Grave or a movie like that. This one, I think, is not quite to that level of I Spit on Your Grave.
But it's not far off either. And it's a remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, which starred Max von Sydow. You know, the same sort of story from that movie is, you know, Wes Craven sort of borrowed that for this one. The only thing about it that's that's little nails in the chalkboard are the cops. You get some very intense, dramatic scenes. Then all of a sudden we've got Laurel and Hardy, you know, fumbling around as the cops. And it just sort of.
I understand why he did it to try to lighten the mood, but to try to lighten it to that extent right after just sort of like, I don't know if that was the best move, but. That aside, this is, you know. It's one of the sort of it's one of the seminal early. horror films you know like in the it's what like four years after Night of the Living Dead and it's the one that put Wes Craven on the map it's the one that got him started I think he was a college professor
And when he made this movie, he was showing it to colleagues and other people. Like, you can't even make a movie like this. How can you make a movie like this? You know, he's sort of shocking everybody. I love it. I consider those cops like Statler and Waldorf.
That's basically what they are. Yeah, but I mean, Stadler and Waldorf at least laugh at their own jokes. These two don't even know they're funny. They're just sort of bumblers. But I do agree with you, Dave. This is... a film that i think whether no matter what side of the fence you are in horror you need to see this film once make up your mind whether you like it or not i think you need to see it once it's graphic yes But it tells a tale, and the ending...
I bloody well love the ending. And I'm not going to give it away. But David Hess asking for mercy. in that room after what he's done the balls on him right yeah to put his arms in front of his face and go please don't Wow. David Hess is the best asshole you're going to fuck. He basically played that in... I can't think of David Hess playing a romantic hero in any movie.
No, I mean, the thing is, he's not a bad looking guy. He's a decent actor. He's a good actor. He could play a Tom Hanks kind of role in terms of, you know, a silly background guy. He certainly could. He is. so good this movie yeah this movie typecast him and he just he just rolled with it but when he went with that when he went to house at the edge of the park It's just an extension of that character. Hitchhike with Franco Nero. Yeah. Yeah.
He is, anybody who hasn't seen him, he is almost your poster child for that dick serial killer that has no conscience. Yeah. That is David Heff. but he plays it brilliantly and pearl i can't give enough praises to this film i think it's fantastic I love it. All right, Pearl, let's go into our third one then. Well, after I put some fake recording screams out in the woods to make everyone I was going to say, what snacks are you giving us out there? Oh, there's everything.
There's popcorn, pretzels, there's hot dogs. Some jujubes? You got it. But she's hidden them in the surrounding woods, so you got to go find them. If I'm going searching, the bitter will be edible. Anyway, sorry, Pearl. Everything's in the cabin to the left. So for my final film, I thought that I would end it by spooking your dreams. In this movie, Wes Craven brought out not only a slasher but a demented supernatural slasher. This one's a nightmare on Elm Street.
Where a disfigured man terrorizes teenagers' dreams. In turn, he kills them in reality. Okay, so on this one, we got Robert Englund, Heather Landerkamp. Johnny Depp, John Saxton, Amanda Weiss, Jules Garcia, Lynn Shay, Ronnie Blakely to mention. Amongst the many more in the cask. But you got a group of students who are having trouble sleeping.
they're not talking about it but because some some of them who are best friends are spending the night together and they're mentioning like they get jumpy little noises but You got Nancy and Tina who are spending the night together. She doesn't want to sleep alone. Her parents are out of town. And she starts talking about like a certain noise and certain things.
Nancy also has her boyfriend, um, Glenn over. And, but I guess supposedly he's not staying. But she, she starts talking about her dream and even... Glenn says, you know, yeah, dreams, you know, they're not real. Just, you know, they just happen. And meanwhile, Nancy's like, wait a minute. Is this guy, you know, like, you know, wearing this, wearing that? And she's all, well, yeah. She's all like, that's kind of odd. That's kind of creepy. But then like.
They realize that they're dreaming about the same guy. They don't know why. But, you know, he's frightening them. You know, he's taunting them. Tina ends up like, you know, her... Rod. He ends up coming over and Tina's boyfriend and kissing makeup. gives a reason for Glenn to stay.
but separate rooms of course except for rod and tina until like moments you start hearing screaming in the room they don't know what's going on all you hear is rod screaming like you know let her go or you know i'll get you and you know but Tina's not just on the bed she is being sliced in front of his face and he can't see the killer but she is being dragged against the wall up the roof and dropped down to the bed.
He escapes out the window and Nancy and Glenn break the door down and see the horrific mess that's left behind. Nancy's dad is a cop she's at the station and they're wondering okay what happened here and she's like you know we were there to you know help her because she was having dreams and And they're thinking like, well, what happened with them? She's all, well, they had a fight. And, you know, he's all, must have been serious. She's all, no, it wasn't that serious.
slowly one by one they're starting to drop like flies they're starting to now tell each other that the man like you know, that they keep seeing is real. Nancy's kind of figuring out things that she's investigating and she kind of finds out, okay, you know, my parents did something. you know her mom starts telling her like you know there was a child killer
who they decided to take matters in their own hands and burn him, and now he's back. Well, supposedly, you know, she has his hat and has his gloves made of razors, and she had it in the boiler room.
she told nancy saying see he's dead he's gone and she's like no he's not gone now he's after them you know in his dreams so she has to figure out how am I gonna survive you know she starts I give kudos and wow like because I don't know anyone who really does this out of the blue but she doesn't do it yourself like booby traps the house to get him. And she also finds out too that the one major clue is that if she goes to sleep and holds on to him, she can bring him out of bed.
And this is how she's going to destroy Freddy Krueger. So from there... You find out if she's still dreaming or not, or does she succeed? Does she get Freddy? I love it. What a way to finish a night out is with a freaking nightmare of Freddy Krueger. Like you went from... what I call a fun-filled movie, like Scream. It's fun to me to watch it.
It's fun. And then you went into this visceral, just eye-gouging movie of Last House on the Left, and then you're going to give us this nightmare of Freddy Krueger. Man, if I'm in them woods, I'm like, fuck that. Two extremes of slashers, because in Scream, they're so clumsy, you're afraid they're going to fall on their own knife as the killer's running all over the place. And this one...
he's the most frightening cause you can never avoid him. Yeah. You will always be, you will always come face to face with Freddy Krueger cause you cannot stay awake forever. Yeah. Cause like ghost face, to me is like, you mentioned Laurel and Hardy and it is, I would consider it more like Abbott and Costello. I almost want to hear when I'm going, I mean, it's like, they're that goofy. Like they're tripping all the time. They're falling, you know, they're clumsy. And you're like,
yeah yeah get out of my way and and you know and but that's what i figure but then you get freddie who's not you know it's more visceral too uh didn't get comedic until after the first one so that's that's good well being the host that i am I'm going to have fun screeching those windows and making noises. Giving you guys one hell of an experience. I just realized you could do a great double feature with John Saxon as a detective.
with with this one in black christmas oh right that's right for that scene alone where he where he looks at the report by the cop and it has fellatio on it. The look on his face there alone is gold and black. Or you could do this and then show Tenebrae. True. That's true. But the other part that I like about this is it's a small but memorable role with Lin Shay. Mm-hmm.
And I love that Amanda Weiss went from Miss to Better Off Dead. Right? But this is one of those films, this came out when I was 10, that all the kids talked about on the school year. you know somebody had seen from an older brother or there was a bootleg tape floating around for everyone to watch when their parents didn't know you were watching it it was one of those kind of films
And inevitably, I can guarantee almost all of our audience watched that film when they shouldn't have. You weren't mature enough to watch it, but you were just you had to watch it. And it either gave you nightmares or it gave you a thrill, but it did. evoke some kind of visceral
emotion from this film. And I mean, there's the whole bit about, you know, is he a child molester and I mean, you can get deeper into it, but ultimately he's just... hearkening back to i think i remember him saying he remember reading an article or something in the news that kind of inspired this and yeah yes
Yeah, everybody remembers the scene with Johnny Depp getting sucked into the bed. And it's just one of those films, again, that whether you like it or you don't, you need to at least have seen it once to form an opinion. That's right. And I had the good fortune five, six years ago to see this at my local drive-in. And seeing this at 10 o'clock at night in the drive-in, it's awesome. That's great. So, yeah, go check it out if you haven't. Hell, yeah.
Oh, cool. I love the movie watch. It's a fun watch. I thought you were going to say Pearl. Oh, I can't sleep. Well, I thought you were going to add, okay, as a fourth movie, we're going to watch People Under the Stairs. There you go. Well, you never know. I might give a new nightmare. What was the one he made? Didn't he make a movie? Was it with Meryl? Streep or something, like a drama? No, that was...
Oh, I know which one you're talking about. Oh, shit, if you wouldn't have said it, I'd have told you right off. I'll own it. Now I got to look it up. Now you got to make me look it up. Music, music, something. Oh, you're, I'm talking to something different then. I'm totally thinking of something different. Oh, okay. No, I was thinking.
Why do they always go, they always default to, when you go to IMDB and he's a director, they never default to the director credits for somebody. They always default, oh, here he's second unit director or something like that. Music of the heart is what I would say. Oh, okay.
You know, I don't know that I've even seen that. 1999. And I thought, does that have Meryl Streep? Maybe I'm wrong. No, it does. It has Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep starred in that one. If you look at the ones that Pearl didn't choose. The hills have eyes. Deadly blessing.
Freddy's Nightmare, People Under the Stairs. You could just do a full day of Wes Craven. The Serpent and the Rainbow. The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Hills Have Eyes Too, Pulse. All of these films you could just sit and watch. Swamp Thing. Yeah, totally. Especially the hills have eyes. I mean, you know, a lot of his movies were remade. and most of them did not quite reach that level. The one that I think kind of did was the remake of The Hills Have Eyes that Alexander Aja directed.
I'm a big fan of the remake of that one. I don't know that I prefer it to the original. I still think the original is pretty amazing, but I am a fan of the remake. I've got a number of his movies. Obviously, Nightmare on Elm Street was remade. The people under The Last House on the Left was remade. So, you know, I guess he had given a few of his movies over for that, or had agreed to allow for the remakes. But even something like Red Eye.
i remember seeing that in the theater and uh that's that's a bit it's more thriller than horror but it's a it's a damn intense film yeah still yeah that could easily be uh that could easily be a twilight zone kind of deal yeah but uh and pearl did you mention in scream the cameo by I did not. Oh, as the Freddie Dunup custodian in the film. Yes, he's wearing the sweater. That's funny. I don't know if anybody knows, how many of those sweaters were there?
I can't imagine one survived seven films or whatever. No, I can't imagine. All right, well, we're down to our last theater viewing, and that is going to be Moise. That's right, mine. Much to the chagrin of Moise. of many people. I did not pick John Carpenter. You chose Mike Nichols. I was going to pick John Carpenter and I chose different because
John Carpenter would be obvious, and if I did, I could pick a million movies of his. I'd pick every one of his movies but The Ward and Ghost in Mars, and we would have a great time. But I chose a different director tonight, and this director I chose. is cut much like what bill mentioned with the uh the kilt of of Roger Corman. This gentleman also got a little bit of his his take from Mr. Corman himself too. And the individual that I chose is Joe Dante.
And the reason I chose Joe Dante was because I wanted my movie watches tonight to be fun. I wanted my movie watches to be some laughter feel, some good effect. some good storytelling but just fun and that's what you get with joe dante started out as an artist that just knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, who ended up getting a job via Roger Corman as being a trailer editor, basically cutting trailers. And then he become a reviewer and then eventually went into filmmaking.
And the movie I'm going to talk about for my first movie watch with this individual is one of the... funnest movies that i've seen that is not fun necessarily but it is a goofy But a very well done movie. This is in the makings of the Jaws ripoffs that came off thereafter. And it is, of course, 1978's Piranha.
I absolutely love and adore this movie. So the first movie we're going to see in the theater we're going to come in is 1978's Piranha. Now this came from the era of where we had like movies such as Orca and we had movies. you know, like Alligator from 1980. A lot of these movies took its... take from of course jaws from 1974 piranha is almost a to an extent sometimes a shot for shot of jaws and that's okay it still works
Well, that's what they were doing. As a matter of fact, I think Universal was going to go after Roger Corman for... making this movie. And then Spielberg goes, nah, no, I like it. Leave it alone. He basically told him, don't bother. Don't sue them. That's exactly right.
so we go into this movie opens up much like jaws we got a uh two individuals that want to go swimming but not in the ocean they're going into this little pool switch off place and unbeknownst to them there is some uh fish you will call piranha are in there and they get eaten and this is where the movie takes place we're introduced to a female character that But Maggie. And she's not maybe the sharpest tool in the shed, but she's Maggie. She's played by Heather Menzies.
And she is basically sent out to kind of investigate what's going on with the disappearance of these individuals and what may be going on. And she... hires Paul Grogan, played by Bradford Dillman, to be her guide throughout this area, not knowing that Mr. Dillman is basically an alcoholic that just likes to chill. And, uh, but he's good at what he does. Now I will give him that. And I think he sobers up by the end of this movie really well because he has to.
It's got a really good cast in this movie. You got Dr. Robert Hoke who just comes out of nowhere in a scene. where they're trying to basically shut the valve or drain the pool. And when they do that, just out of nowhere, Kevin McCarthy's character, Dr. Robert. Robert Hope jumps in. It's almost like he jumped out of the ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers into his scene immediately. It feels a lot like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He jumps in.
There's a fight, pursue, and they win the battle, and they find the skeletal remains of the two individuals that disappeared. And this begins a whole movie of them tracking down these piranha. We have multiple scenes where we have campers. We have... more adult aged kids we have all these different moments taking a place all across this waterway we got a mayor played by dick miller or i don't necessarily know if he's the mayor but anyways dick miller the great dick miller uh he's doing this
celebration thing. I think he owns the camp. He does. I think he's the owner of that camp, yeah. It is funny because you got the scene of him not wanting to shut it down, you know. And his assistant Sir, the piranha's like, what about that goddamn piranha? They're eating the gas. so there's so many moments in here that i love there is so many great moments where kids are on inner tubes and the
They get this little herky-jerk moment, and then next thing you know, they're floating underwater, and they're blood-filled, and I love it. But you know what? There's scenes in this that are dramatic, too, with that. I mean, if you think of Paul Bartell, who every time I see the guy, you just want to let...
Because that's the type of character he always plays. Bartell is one of those great side characters. Yeah. In whatever film he's in. But there's a moment in this where you are just, your heart breaks. And it's because of his reaction. Absolutely. Richard Deacon's in this film. Which I was getting to. Hang on. Let me finish.
Y'all hush. Let me finish. Y'all had your moments. My turn. I'm just kidding. But Richard Deacon I was getting to because I love Richard Deacon because I know him from Dick Van Dyke's show. And he's such a great character. Leave it to Beaver.
I like Dick Van Dyke a little bit better than Leave It to Beaver. Thank you very much. I like him at Dick Van Dyke, too. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. It's the glasses. Every time I see the guy, I immediately think of the Dick Van Dyke. I do, too. It's the glasses. It's like he has them. It's just that look. You got his character in this, which is hilarious. This whole movie is just fun. And it just screams schlock.
It screams like drive-in theater moments. And Joe Dante done such a tremendous job of just keeping this movie going. Of course, you know, with Roger Corman's executive producing and a lot of hands in on this stuff. The cast, you got Barbara Steele who shows up in about 50 minutes of this movie or something around that point. Same with Dick Miller's character. It's almost like you got multiple movie clips in this movie. You start out with just these two, and then we have this moment of...
you know, Maggie and Paul going around trying to find out what's going on. Then all of a sudden we switch gears and we go to a camping scene and we got these kids. Then he switched gears and you go to another scene. We got a boat sequence scene, just like in Jaws, where guys ski in.
while he's skiing you see a body being devoured by what he doesn't know but we know is piranha and he starts to scream at the two girls driving the boat like go forward and what do they want to do they want to slow down he's like go forward i mean it's all these moments that we're watching that are tense you're like holy shit like dude what are you doing
uh so it has all those moments it's a fun movie to watch man it's absolutely a blast It's definitely not on the same level as Jaws, but it's so damn entertaining. I absolutely love it. Cass, like y'all mentioned, is so good, man. Dick Miller, man, he plays Buck Gardner and he just plays such a good job in this one. But Kevin McCarthy's character, just so over the top.
But he has his heroic moment in this movie that, you know, he kind of redeems himself a little bit in this one. And like you mentioned, Paul Bartell. Oh my God, it's Mr. Dumont. who's kind of the camp counselor or whatever guy that there's even a scene that I loved in this movie.
where the kids, they got like the bow and arrows and shit. There's a scene where one of the bow and arrows is set up and they've shot his picture. They put the picture on the board and they got all these arrows in it. He walks by and he looks at it like, It's all these moments, these little moments in this movie.
You just want to laugh every time you see him. I love it. I have a fun, fun, fun time watching this movie. And I literally wanted my theater watch, like I said, to be fun tonight. So that's why I chose this one. That's a great start. I mean, that's a great way to start it. It's absolutely the way to get going. You got your blood pumping. You're like, okay, we've watched a piranha movie. We've got water going. We've got some good effects.
The sounds of the piranha are awesome. That's the thing that gets me because in Jaws, you had the musical cue. Whenever the shark was around, they used the great John Williams score. In this one, you hear teeth gnashing underwater. Yes. And that's how you know the piranha are on their way. There's even a scene. Those things are fast. Yes, they are.
There's even a scene where there's a piranha that comes right at you, just like in Jaws 3D. It just comes straight at you, and you're like, holy crap. They went for that moment. But thankfully not in 3D with one of those damn glasses. Yeah, thank you. But this is a movie I remember very well, Dave, around this era of the early 80s.
There was that craze of piranha. Like it became this whole thing. Like, I don't know why it was in the news a lot and different things. So maybe because of this movie getting a little bit of light, I don't know. But I do remember being petrified. of being in lakes and different things because I was always afraid there would be piranha in there and I think I know subconsciously it's because this movie as a young age I had seen this one and I think it kind of scared me so much like Jaws did.
I was even petrified of just being in a swimming pool at the beach because I thought Jaws would come through the swimming pool. That movie terrified me. So Piranha did. I'd have to say this is probably the best of the Jaws ripoff. Agreed, agreed. Oh, yeah, easily. Yeah, so this is how we're starting our movie watch with Piranha from 1978. Yep, 78. So then we're going to go super fun, guys. Now we've gotten our blood pumping, man. We're kind of like...
Oh, that was a good movie. How do you calm yourself down? Oh, I'm not going to calm you down. Oh, no, we're going to go into something super, super blastful, and it's 1989's The Burb. Because what screams fun more than Tom Hanks? No Joe Dante festival would be complete without it. You've got to have it. And it's Tom Hanks. And, man, you got Bruce Dern in this movie. You got Carrie Fisher.
Rick, uh, duck them on. You got Corey Feldman who plays a goofy character in this one. Gail Gordon, Henry Gibson. This thing is chopped full of people that you'll recognize. And if you don't even recognize them, you'll will by the end of the movie. But we know the story. This is a suburban town or a suburban city. It's got a cul-de-sac. And some things start going awry, right? Tom Hanks is ready. It's time for vacation. He wants to chill.
But what does his wife, Carrie Fisher want to do? You know, she wants to go somewhere and Tom's like, I just want to sit here, man. I just want to like, I just want to relax. I want to have a good time. Right. So anyway, so. She's gone. He's here. Things start happening because they start noticing a house that has some weird things going on. And this is all because of his freaking friend, his neighbor friend that starts putting shit in his head.
And you're like, what is this going on? And I absolutely loved it. It's Rick Decommon, who plays Art Wingard. And Art starts seeing these weird things. We got a Dr. Werner Klopek who lives next door in this house, as well as Theodore Godably, who plays Reuben Klopek. They're weird. You got Courtney Gaines playing Hans, Klopek over there as well. It's just a weird family. And Art starts noticing some weird stuff. One of the neighbors disappears, right? We think he...
maybe has been murdered or something. We find out a little bit later in the movie spoiler that he had been in the hospital. and it was nothing but it becomes a whole vacation of him trying to figure out what's going on and it goes bonkers it goes completely bonkers absolutely love this movie the acting is phenomenal the effects in this thing are so fun
To see Tom Hanks go from an ordinary person to complete just mental breakdown psycho by the end of this movie. One of the scenes I absolutely love is at the end of this movie when all has come down to a head. And the ambulances are here. The police are here because something had happened. He's literally done. He's like, I'm done. He wants nothing to do with art. He's even telling him, give me a shot. Take me out. Literally, he's done for this moment. This is that movie. I love it.
There's a party sequence in this where Corey Feldman's like sitting on a porch, starts inviting all these people over. They're eating pizza. They're watching the show take place at this person's. It's hilarious. I love the burbs. I could talk about this movie for a zillion years. I have seen this thing so many.
freaking times and every time i watch it i smile every time i watch it i'm happy every time i watch it i think tom hanks i love you like it's just one of the most fun field goofy moments that is a little bit quirky because this neighbor that they have some things are going on and we don't know i mean he's it looks like he's got bodies coming out of his house you know in trash bag Is he a murderer? You know, is he all these things? And it becomes this whole weekend of terror for him.
All because of art. That damn art has got so much shit fed into his brain. Go ahead, guys. I love that this is Tom Hanks, you know, back when it's a few years after he had done like Splash and Bachelor Party. But he's still sort of in that mode. You know, he did Dragnet. a couple years before this with Dan Aykroyd. This was sort of the fun Tom Hanks and then of course he
with like Forrest Gump and a lot of the work he did with Zemeckis. Don't forget the man with one red shoe. The man with one red shoe, yep. That's another one of his. And I remember early on when he was in Splash, Roger Ebert, again, I am an Ebert fan, but he said, Tom Hanks is not a leading man. He said, I would have rather seen John Candy play the lead in this.
than Tom Hanks. I just don't see Tom Hanks as a leading man in Hollywood. Well, that certainly didn't age well. Famous last words right there. But I remember watching that episode when they were reviewing Splash and he said that. But yeah, this is Tom Hanks at a time when you really enjoyed the movies he made. And I got to say, there's a behind the scenes clip. And it cracked me up as I was watching it because it just, like, it's sort of a, they're showing all this behind-the-scenes footage.
And Joe Dante is talking to Dick Miller about something. They're going over something. And Corey Feldman notices the guy shooting this behind the scenes. And he jumps in front of the camera. He starts making noise. like attracting attention. And Dick Miller just goes, shut the fuck up, kid. We're talking here. I love how Bruce, Bruce Dern kind of leads a perverse neighborhood watch.
Yeah, military, ex-military. He's an ex-Vietnam vet, I think. Or at least he's playing that. He's on this roof with a rifle. The characters are so crazy in this, but yet... you don't you know in the in the movie they kind of seem normal with everything going on around them yeah um even though like you take any one of them aside and they're like okay well they're pretty insane but with everything happening in the movie and the way it's playing out
they just seem to sort of fit in with what's happening. I love, I, I, If you take, if you were to say what movie gets better every time you see it, there are some. And for me, the burbs gets better every time I see it. Henry Gibson plays it so straight. Yeah, he does. It's like his role in the Blues Brothers. it's a perverse situation, but he plays it bang on. Like he's on Broadway. Yeah. He's just very,
You want to go in my backyard? Sure, come on. One of my favorite scenes is basically this house that we think the quote-unquote killer or... kooky people are at you know it's the only house in the neighborhood that's run down it looks you know just it looks creepy right
And there's a scene where Ray Peterson, played by Tom Hanks, him and his wife, Carol, are going to go check on this house. And they take Mark Rumsfeld, who's married to the hottest chick in the town, right? Or at least on the neighborhood cul-de-sac. but it's Mark Rumsfeld and Bonnie Rumsfeld played by Wendy Schau.
So they go to take over some kind of like a little tray. They want to introduce themselves, right? And you see them go walking up to this house. And that's where we find Courtney Gaines's character, like straight out of Children of the Corn from...
Even more worse than that because he's like super white pale and just like got this weird look on. I'm like, dude, get the fuck out of this house. Like, dude, you do not need to be over here. Like his foot goes through the pad. It's fucking hilarious, dude. It's such a good movie. So here we go. We've went from, Pearl, you got anything to add on that one? I'm sorry. No, I'm good. Okay. All right. So we go from Piranha1978. To 1989's The Burbs.
It's getting to be a long night. We've already watched two full movies. We're three, four hours in on this thing. We've been laughing like hell. How do we finish the night? Oh, you know we're going to go fun again. No, we're going to The Howling. We've got to go to a horror movie. We've got to get in there. I was going to do Gremlins. I said, no, no, no. We got to finish this thing with a bang and we're going to 1980.
What an amazing werewolf movie. I think if you're going to finish a marathon off and you want to go home with something, you want to go home scared. You want to go home with some fright in you. You've been laughing for three or four hours. The howling is the best way to go with it for sure. with the cast of a lot of people. We got Kevin McCarthy and I could have did a do it. Maybe we should have called this the double feature of Kevin McCarthy tonight.
We've got Dee Wallace played by Karen White. Absolutely love her. She is so adorable in this movie. She plays a reporter and we have these things going on and we do know that we do have Slim Pickens' character in here who I love, Sam Newfield. I love Slim. But John Carradine has a weird...
John Carradine moment in this movie. Anything John Carradine's in is weird and he's definitely weird. It's just a basic movie. It's a setup of a werewolf and they're trying to track down is there a werewolf and then there is and then there's killings and and then we have the epic little cub moment at the end i'll just leave it as a cub moment you'll know what i'm talking about
uh william bill neal christopher stone who we know was married to d wallace for some time uh plays in this one and he was also of course in uh what was the movie love the uh Oh, shoot, the movie with Dee Wallace, Cujo, over there with Cujo with her as well, returning. But anyways, I love this movie, man. This has got some of the...
Really, I don't want to call it the best, but it's definitely one of the strongest makeup effects and transformations. Everyone always, of course, will say American Werewolf in London, rightfully so. I mean, it's hard to beat Rick Baker and hard to beat that.
But some of the transformations in these are awesome. I love them. Minus one female transformation at the end. I'll just leave it at that. That's just so goofy and hokey. But other than that, man, I absolutely love this movie. It's got some fright in it. It's got some...
Some just really good moments, man. I absolutely love this. And I think going to a theater, you won't believe, like I said, a little bit with a little bit of scare, a little bit of tinge of excitement. This is it, man. Let's get this one in there and have fun with it. Absolutely love it. So it is the howling is how we're finishing our night. And anybody else got anything to go on now?
And this was released the exact same year as American Werewolf in London. Oh, yeah. I mean, they both came out in 1981. And it's funny how that works. You know, like you get, we get two of the best. As a matter of fact, the two of almost like the default werewolf movies other than the classic Universal. If you're thinking of the more modern and I'm modern, I'm over 40 years ago, but still in the more modern era.
Uh, it's definitely American world from London and the howling that you go to those two films. And in fact, they both came out the same year, I think is, is pretty impressive. And I was noticing that. Both Piranha and The Howling were co-written anyway by John Sayles, who would really make a name for himself in independent movies as a director, more dramas and things like that.
some great movies and it's so cool that he got his start with the in the corman school as well uh at more as a writer uh which i think is pretty cool but anyway yeah i'm with you i think the howling is One of the seminal werewolf movies and one that, you know, it. It ranks right up there with American Werewolf in London, I think. And I mean, the other beauty of this film is, you know, some people might consider it a throwaway, you know.
low budget it's good like like you legitimately watch it and you're interested is it got some dark comedy absolutely does it have some slapstick comedy absolutely but i mean you've got robert picardo You've got Slim Pickens. You've got John Carradine, and actually a very good role. for him I mean it's not anything world beating or anything but it's you know it's not as part of the crap that he did in the 70s
This has got more to it than you might think. And you guys have already talked about the transformation and the way that that's done. And it's done fantastic. You know, do they look the most realistic? Maybe not, but it's done really.
and anybody that kind of blows this one off and oh they've heard about it watch it because it will be in your top five werewolf films i have no doubt by the time you're finished watching this film yeah i totally agree there's a really good scene with a peep show thing at the beginning of this movie uh with d wallace
that I think it's done really well, and it's kind of shot almost like you think in New York City. I don't know exactly where this is supposed to take place, but it kind of feels New York-ish with the peep show type thing. we see something happening there with the werewolf transformation. That was really cool. Now do not, if you've not seen this movie, do not watch the trailer because they show one of the biggest spoilers in the trailer of this thing that you'll ever see.
And it's the ending of a movie, which I thought was ridiculously stupid to put on a trailer. But there's some good moments. There's some tense moments. But like Bill said, there's still that dark humor. There's still that. Roger Corman take on this. You got Joe Dante giving that Roger Corman shake over here a little bit. and Dante is going to give you some humor, so he's definitely going to give that to us, his forte.
And I love it, man. It's just handled really well. Dennis Duggan, who plays Chris in this one, is a good actor and really good. We didn't mention Marsha, who's played by Elizabeth Brooks. Holy cow. You know, every guy in the world, and woman's probably going to. There's an eye-peel moment in this movie for that one. And the older cop played by Kenneth Tovey. I love that character too.
But no, this is a good one. So this is my way of ending the night is going in and watching the howling with you guys. That's great. And you know what? I'm looking at this here because, you know, Kevin McCarthy's in this and he was in Piranha. Boy, did they miss a golden opportunity having Kevin McCarthy run in in the burbs.
And act like that character, like that guy shouting doom and gloom, just the neighbor from down the road who all of a sudden turns up and starts screaming. You know what they should have done is they should have had that dog. Oh, God, the dog from Amazing Fun. God, that thing gave me nightmares. Oh, my God. So there you go. So that is my movie watch. We started with 1978 Piranha, went to 1989 The Burbs, finished it out with 1981 The Howling. So that's where we're at right there.
All righty, with our theater watches done, we're getting ready to get into our voicemails. But before that, I just want to go to Dr. Shock and let Dave Becker let us know what our next episode is going to be about, and then we'll get into our voicemails. So, Dave, take it away, my friend. All right. Well, episode next episode is episode 425.
where we're going to be continuing our look at the 90s. It's going to be our top five of 1993. And our special guest is going to be Mr. Gary Hill. There you go. Stay tuned. Be prepared. Call in now. 1-804-569-5682 after you listen to the episode. And call in and let us know what your top five horror movies of 1993 are. We're going to have a good barn burner.
of an episode for that one. So with that said, it's time to get into our voicemails. And I've been sitting here twiddling my thumbs when I should have done had the recorder ready and we should have already been just like rocking and rolling. But you know better than that. as homer simpson would do he would be like and you'll hear my lovely sweet voice here go uh so what we got to do here let's go to uh patrick gunner first
All right, Patrick Gunner gives in his theater, and it's John Carpenter is his director. Great choice there, Mr. Patrick. His three movie... Suck up! Suck up! I love Patrick, though. He's cool like that. Here is his three movie watch. Halloween from 1978, In the Mouth of Madness, and then he's going to finish it out number three with The Thing. Really three damn good films. Three totally different films.
It's interesting how he how he how he breaks up Halloween and the thing with In the Mouth of Man is right in the middle there. Yeah. And it's like he could have went and we might end up hearing other people do John Carpenter as well. But I mean, you got so many movies. you know you could have went with escape from new york and la i would have found a way to get escape from new york and i really would have and i really was going to go that route and i was like
I was going to throw they live in there because, you know, it's just a kind of would fit along with escape. I was going to say the three films Patrick chose are great, but it doesn't let you breathe. Like they're all intense. I love it. You could have put a salt in precinct 13 in there. I was going to say, at least if you put and say they live in the middle, it lets you breathe a little bit. Sure.
Sure. I would have found a way to get Escape from New York and Prince of Darkness. That would probably be my two because I think, you know, Halloween, the thing is one of my, of course, Halloween's a masterpiece. And the thing both are on my top 10 horror movies of all time. But Carpenter's done so many great movies. You know, it's it's. You just want to, you need more than three. You need, you need to rent a theater for a day. Yeah. But I mean, the thing is the perfect film to see in the dark.
Oh yeah. With the paranoia and the jump scares. It's a perfect scene to see in the dark in February. Like a dark theater in the middle of February too. Or as I say, my backyard. Yeah right. Everybody crowd on the hammock. We're going to go to Bill's backyard and watch the thing. That's right. That's right. All right, let's get to our voicemails here. Let's go to this one. First up here, let's go to, oh, let's see who this is.
Thanks for letting me in. Close the door. All right. I've got a story to tell. I was dead and buried. I was being happy. I was finally done with everything that I did. And his friend Horshek, dig up my grave! And then they stick a metal rod through my chest from a fence that doesn't make any sense how they pulled that off of there. And then lightning struck, and I came back alive.
They tried to fight me off. Tommy tried to set me on fire, but that was stupid. And Horshack, oh, he's dead. He's dead. But now here I am. I came back. Came back home. The first thing I thought of was to call. I'm back. The unknown caller is back, baby. Wow. Just be ready. Just be ready, all of you creeps. There's no way anyone gets out alive. He's back! He's back, Andy! Is that kind of like a teaser trailer? Oh, man, it could be. I mean, we...
I don't know where we go from here. Unknown caller's back. We better beware, listeners. It's been over a year, I think. For you new listeners, you're in... I don't know. I'm just saying. You better watch out. He's just been sitting in the quiet plotting. That's what it is. Or has it? Like he's been gone for a year. Huh? What could happen in a year's time? Could he be making plans?
He could have been locked up for doing something. We don't know. But he's back. I love it. Oh, that's great. We were just talking about him recently. We were. Hey, we haven't heard from him in a while. He's back. Great call. That's great. All right, let's go to our next call. This is for the bonus episode. Hey, great girl, Dave Bill, Darren from Northern California calling. Okay. Dave, Dr. Schockbecker threw down a challenge for us, and it is a great one.
So for my director pick, I'm going to go really old school. And when I say old school, I'm going back to 1930s old school. The director I am picking is Mr. James Whale. And the triple feature that I have, start the evening off with the H.G. Whale classic, The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains. This is a movie that just hits it out of the park every time you watch it, and I have never seen a better Invisible Man movie. Even the effects hold up to this day.
How he did them, especially the bandage unwrapping scene, is still a mystery to me, but it is a lot of fun to watch. The second movie is The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff and Gloria Stewart. A change of pace for Mr. Whale, getting away from monsters, but still a nice haunting and dark comedy. that is really enjoyable. And then finally, the last film, the 1931 Universal Monster Classic that started it all, Frankenstein. Starring Boris Karloff again, Colin Clive, Dwight Frye.
one of the greatest masterpieces ever made. And it is definitely in my top three. horror movies of all time uh Now, you'll note I did not put the Bride of Frankenstein on this list that James Whale also directed. That's because I wanted to have my triple feature be... a different representation of films of his, whereas Bride of Frankenstein was just a continuation of Frankenstein.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing the directors and triple features you're all picking and all the callers are picking, and I will talk to you next time. Take care. Bye-bye. I love it. James Whale is one of my all-time favorite directors. I almost went with him myself. I almost said, maybe I'll go with James Whale. But, you know, again, you you you're going to pick. I think he picked the great movies you're going to pick.
The Invisible Man. I mean, I think that might be my favorite James Whale film, just because of how well, like he's saying, how well the effects hold up. Now, Frankenstein is probably always going to be my favorite. I love Frankenstein. But The Invisible Man is so good. The Old Dark House, very underrated one. But when I was thinking about it, I was thinking I would end this three movie festival. with the 90s movie Gods and Monsters about James Whale. We had Sir Ian McKellen playing James Whale.
I thought that would be kind of interesting but then I'm like well geez then that only leaves me two James Whale movies to pick and what the hell do I pick so ultimately I ended up obviously not going with James Whale but I definitely was thinking about it because he is Probably the first great director. in the horror genre. You know, Todd Browning in The Silent Arrow was making great movies, but I don't look at Dracula.
necessarily as the direction that made it. It was definitely Bela Lugosi who made that movie. And Todd Brownlee sort of lost his zest for it when Lon Chaney passed away because he wanted Lon Chaney to play the count. But anyway, James Will, I think, is the first great. director in the horror genre, at least as far as, you know, in the United States. Nice. All right, let's go to our next caller. One director, three movies. What would you choose?
I think the most terrifying would be Tyler Perry. Any three movies of Tyler Perry. And you will Perry-ish. Seriously, though. I told Pearl, I thought... For me, Don Costarelli, what I'd do is I'd rent a theater, and then at 4.20 p.m. in the afternoon, I'd invite a bunch of people over for a Don Costarelli film festival. First would be Phantasm, 1970. Then Baba Hotep, 2002.
Then John dies at the end, 2012. Wow. And we started at 420 because, well, you know. And Bill, you can drink whatever you need to drink to make sure that you feel smooth. And then we could all get higher. and higher and higher. And that the end of John dies at the end. Everyone in the theater named John dies. You guys all know these movies. I don't want to explain them. So that's my three. Don Coscarelli, Phantasm, Bubba Hotep, and John dies at the end.
I also thought maybe that sooner or later you guys could do this with actors. My idea would be possibly Nick Frost. Start with Black Cab. then go to Crazy House, then go to Getaway. That'd be a good three movies with him. But anyway, so my choice is Don Costarelli. Can't wait to hear everybody else's. I love you guys. Thank you for keeping me horror alive. And yeah, I'm back. Hmm. All right. Bye. Bye.
Oh, God, it's hilarious. I like the idea of doing it with a character, though, like an actor. That's a good idea. Yeah, that would be very interesting. That'll be for next year. Yeah. Yeah, because you can pick anyone. Hey, who wants John Kerry? Oh, right. Billy the Kid versus whatever it was. You only got 200 movies to choose from. 250 or whatever it was. But it's funny because, you know, as much green as I've had, I could be high as a kite.
It still won't make me make sense of John Dyson at all. John Dyson won't make sense. No, I love it. I love putting Bubba Hoatap right in the middle there. Oh, Bubba Hoatap. Ozzie Davis is great in that. Ozzie Davis is great. I think I like it when Elvis asked him about Marilyn Monroe. Off the record, wow. Wow. Here we go. We got another call. And as you can tell, I'm laughing because you know why. Here we go.
Hey, guys. Just wanted to say one more thing. I appreciate all the love that has been given to me since I've been gone. I'm back. Been through a lot of stuff lately. Just want to let the whole Land of the Creeps community know that you all mean a lot to me. I love you from the bottom of my heart. And I will take the time to kill each and every one of you. Slowly. Very. Slowly. I'm coming for all of you. You go from being so sentimental to like... I'm going to just kill you all.
It's hilarious. But then you get the feeling, geez, I hope there's not like a true crime special like 10 years from now. That kicks off with that phone call. Right, right, yeah. Everything seems so good in the world of LOTC until. Yeah, right. You get that dramatic music. It seemed like an innocent call to a podcast. would go down as one of the crimes of the century. Jesus Christ. I told him I loved her as I was slicing off his penis. At least my name is not John. I'll be all right.
From here now on, everyone roll call. Every day, roll call. If one of you is missing, we're calling an unknown caller. Let's go to our next caller. What is good, creepers? It's your boy Jermaine Adams. Just stopping by to answer questions. Director, I would want to have a triple feature for it. It has to be the uncommentor, and it has to be in this order. The thing... The fog, then Halloween. The original. Alright? There'll be a time I go when they live.
All right, folks. Love you guys. Take a good evening. I love Jermaine. Jermaine is my man. Succinct and to the point. He's been listening to Brian. Exactly. I love that, man. So the thing, the fog, the Halloween. And then if you've got time, throw in They Live. Perfect choices. Yeah. I kind of like the order, too. You go from cold to foggy to Halloween. I like that. There you go. I like that too. But The Fog is one that...
God, every time I forgot about it. We're throwing out all these movies, and I love The Fog, too. That's one of my all-time favorite movies is The Fog. Just the way it opens, that John Houseman opening. Oh, so beautiful. Such a masterful. We have time for one more story. 1159. Or whatever time it was. Smith Bonnie. Dude, his voice. I could listen to him read the phone book doing that. Yeah, he was great. Let's go to Greg Ben. All right, all right, all right. It's Greg from Ohio.
And I'm not calling about the director thing. I'm actually making another call for the horror in the school. And like Gregor Mortis was saying at the end, I mean, it could go on and on. You can go into some deep dive. I actually made a list, and I have no idea. I thought I had called a second time. But, of course, I must have forgot I had made a list. And some of the ones that I put on my list, I don't know if they were mentioned or not, but I just wanted to get them out there.
Man, was I angry when Dave mentioned boarding school. How I overlooked boarding school was beyond me. I love that movie. Every time I watch it, it just gets better and better. But, yeah, I couldn't believe that. And then Raw, one of my favorite ones, Raw. And then it's like, duh, it takes place in a veterinarian school. Oh, I'm so mad.
But a few others that I think may have got overlooked, may not have gotten mentioned. It doesn't matter. But I guess I'll just feel better if I get it off my chest kind of a thing. I think somebody mentioned disturbing behavior. You know, it seemed like 1998 was just a year of horror movies in schools. I mean, it was just nuts. The Gallows, that was one that was recently a few years back. Not super duper, not great, but I mean, you know, for entry-level horror.
The Redeemer, Son of Satan from 1978, an early slasher. This is one that I definitely, if you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch. It's unique all on its own. It's really kind of weird in some ways of just how the killer comes about. It takes place in a school for a school reunion, but that's 1978, the Redeemer. And probably the last one that I'm going to... Oh, Anna and the Apocalypse. I thought Anna and the Apocalypse. But the last one, Friday the 13th Part 8.
I know that that's technically not a school, but it is a school-sanctioned function on the boat heading to New York. So I just thought that was kind of interesting. Real soon. So we'll talk to you later. I love it. Got to get that school call in. That was our last episode. Yeah. Well, he said he forgot to call for the last episode. I guess he had a brain bank.
And the brain benches, he never called in with his directors yet. So I don't know. Maybe he calls in a little bit later. Probably during the 93 episode. He's actually, now he's pulling a Dr. Walking Dead, Kyle Bishop now. You know, we're going to get a call from Kyle pretty soon. All right, these are my top for 92.
But that's still a couple episodes away. That's right. At least three. I'm glad you brought up Redeemer. I'd totally forgotten about that one. I reviewed that on Phantom Galaxy ages ago. It's on Tubi. It's low budget. It's a weird one. Let's go to Anthony R. Hello, creepers. This is Anthony R. Showmaster General. It's Saturday night here. And, you know, I just wrapped up the last episode. And you know what that means? I'm going to take a little shot.
And I got a little mini of Jim Beam pineapple. He's throwing knees at me. So cheers. Cheers to everybody. to horror, to peace and love, and to everybody here in the community, and to y'all, Bill, Greg, and Bill, and Bill, and Greg. Hello. I love this. I love this idea. We're all thrown loose at this director triple feature. And I think it's a great idea. I'm very excited to see what you're all going to come up with. And I immediately thought of when you were talking about it.
Like, ooh, Takashi Miki. Takashi Miki, that's, this is, I just pictured this Takashi Miki triple feature. And then I listened to the rest of the episode and then Bill. I think it was in the bloopers. He's like, I'm going to do Takashi Miki. And then he backtracked. I'm not sure if he did Takashi Miki. So if he did. I'm going to give my triple feature of a perfect Takashi Miike triple feature. And if you didn't do it, I'm just going to throw this out there either way.
Takashi Miki is amazing. I mean, it was strictly horror, strictly horror Takashi Miki, because he did Yakuza, and he did, he's had hundreds of films. He did family films. I would start the first film. First film in a triple feature would be E.T. the Killer, Bloodbath Starter, and then the second film would be Gozu. a weird, bizarre Yakuza thing. And then number three, just a perfect film. It's in my top five audition.
Ichi the Killer, Gozu Audition. And if you're still doing this, because I was confused if you guys were actually doing this this way. But either way, I'm just going to throw this out into the ether. Watch a triple feature of... What's his name? Takashi Miike Isukela Gozu audition. And what do you do, Bill? Did you do it? Do you have the same? I don't know. Either way, just call and say hey.
Love you all. Peace and love. Peace and love. And he didn't do a cliche, and I loved it. I was going to say, Anthony, I had changed my mind by the time I went upstairs. That's a great, great feature. Not that I don't think he's good. I love auditioning. I was going to do him, but I hadn't seen Citizen Q. And I wanted to watch it first. And I was like, I want ones I haven't watched. I've already seen.
Yeah, I've not watched a lot of Yakuza. Miki would have been a great choice. It would have been a good one. Yeah, definitely. I mean, he's a lot of movies you could pick. And I know I've said this before, but I have a book on him. And at the beginning, he says he doesn't recognize genres.
He says for him, there are two genres, porn and non-porn. And he said the one he doesn't work in is porn. I love it. I love it. I'm trying to get into some Asian Yakuza films. So I've been trying to pick up a few of those. You know what? Definitely check out Takeshi Kitano, who played the teacher in Battle Royale. He's made a lot of Yakuza films. Okay, cool. I'll definitely check it out.
All right, we've got a couple, three more calls left. This one's going to be Derek Johns. Let's see what he's got. Hello, Land of the Creeps. This is Dair Jones from Canada calling in. for the director spotlight episode. Not really sure if the supply staff is calling in as well for our director spotlight. Obviously, I'm 55 years old and a big fan of all the mostly 80s movies and obviously of new stuff as well.
All my favorite directors from the 80s, all the heavy hitters, John Carpenter, Toby Hooper, Wes Craven, etc., etc., Argento. For the second half, I haven't seen a lot of his early stuff. But I thought if I'm going to pick a director, I want to pick someone a little, not new, but newer, I guess, from them.
I would go with Alexander Aja. I feel he's made a couple of the best movies of the 2000s with High Tension and The Hills of Eyes remake, which I personally like better than the original. I think it's an amazing movie.
so i would pick those two movies for sure and then he's made a lot his production company has made a lot of good movies as well not ones he's uh directed as well but like maniac remake things like that but if i had to pick another one he directed just with a lot of gore and fun i'm gonna go with prana 3d
Anyway, keep up the great work, everybody there. Dave, Greg, Bill, and Pearl. Love everybody there. You guys do an amazing job week after week. Thank you for what you do for us. Talk to you next time. Bye. Bye. Alexander Raja. I love it, man. We talk about the Hills Have Eyes remake and there it was, man. What a great movie. What a freaking great movie. Yeah, absolutely. And I can't fault him for saying he likes it a little bit more than the original. I'm not quite there yet.
But I am a big fan of that Hills Have Eyes remake. I put it up there with Evil Dead as one of the great remakes of a classic horror film. Agreed. Such a damn good movie. Let's go to Greg P. Hey, this is Greg P calling in one part of your gruesome twosome for the favorite director's episode. Amy Lee couldn't decide between Rob Zombie, Juan, and who's the other one? Tim Burton. And she had more questions than she had.
than answers i could give her so i said how about we just take the week off and i will just call in so that's what i'm doing So my favorite is going to be Joe Dante. For several reasons, but looking at everything he's done, he is truly a genre director. And if I have to pick three films and we're doing it for a drive-in, I'm going to do Gremlins for the first one so the kiddies can see it and enjoy it.
followed by, I'm going to send them to bed, and then we're going to watch Piranha. Oh, nice. Because, again, it is probably the best of the... Jaws knockoffs to the point where Um, Steven Spielberg loved it, so he decided that he would not fight it being released. He said it was really good. We're going to let it be released, and it became a hit. He did that through Roger Corman. And then he went on to do my favorite werewolf movie, which is The Howling.
Just gave me the creeps when I was probably like 12, 13 when this came out and I saw it. And to this day, it continues to be my favorite. werewolf movie and uh for that reason and this is from somebody that just loves the genre as well as uh wanted to be a cartoonist when he His whole life, his father was a pro golfer, I believe, and he just didn't follow in those footsteps. So he just went his own path and did a good one.
you can catch him on trailers from hell quite a bit that channel that is over on plex and with that i'll say thanks for keeping her alive and good night Three hours sleep, you're doing good, Greg P. I love it, dude. Hey, another one for Joe. The only difference is gremlins over the burbs. Yeah, that's right. Other than that, but that's... Yeah, I could see the gremlins being a... If we ever have a meet-up, we're going to have to play Dante movies going in the background.
I like that Amy Lee was thinking Tim Burton. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I mean, I think you could start off with Sleepy Hollow and then you come in with anything. You come in with like, you know, Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands or something. Along those lines, you know, that would be a really cool triple feature. Yes. All right, let's go to 0010, Tim Mitchell. He says, may God frown upon me when I get a day to myself and do a triple feature if I do not include the following.
And number one is pizza slathered with meat. And he's got a good picture. See it, Pearl? Of pizza. Looks amazing. Deep dish. His sack, it is whiskey, any kind of whiskey, and he's got a whole shelf full of liquor just all over the place, bottles and bottles and bottles. And his number three is Diet Coke. Gotta watch my girlish figure. Hee hee. And number four, the mother of all triple feature necessities, Fritos covered in lemon juice. It could be the greatest movie watching snack ever.
And that's what he said. He said, tell Dave, I loved his episode idea and everyone else that they rock. Let's get to his voice. This is 00 Tim out in Bloomington, Indiana. And for my triple feature, I figured most people are going to go for the heavy-hitter directors in the horror genre. So what I wanted to do, out of respect for Dave Becker, is to pick someone who had done an excellent horror film, but had also done really well in other genres.
And eventually I narrowed it down to six and this got really hard. So what I did, I arranged the six directors by their age. So the oldest would be number one and the youngest would be number six. And I got a dice here. And I'm just going to roll it and see what happens. So real quick, the six are Mark Robson, Robert Wise, William Friedkin, Ridley Scott, Peter Hyams, and Tony Scott. So now I'm going to roll the dice. Let's see what happens.
William Friedkin, it is. So my triple feature would be The French Connection from 71, The Exorcist from 73, and Sorcerer from 77. And before I go... I wanted to say a word of thanks to the kind people of LOTC that reached out to me after my multi-shot voicemail from the 92 episode. I really was fine. I do drink a lot, but I don't typically do shots. And I never do them back to back. So my throat was stinging. It was like a xenomorph spit in my mouth. It was so nasty. I handed the phone to Kat.
And she's like, are you all right? And I'm like, just send it. Thank you. Once again, that really touched me. 00 Tim out. But have you learned your lesson? This is true. He almost had the Andrew Devolf Wishmaster going on right there. Send that. Yes, a little bit. I love it. I'm glad he chose Friedkin. I would have thrown Bug in there. Oh, yeah. Yes. The Exorcist, you got Bug. That's awesome. Sorcerer would have been a good third one for that. And he did. I've never seen Killer Joe.
I haven't seen Killer Joe either. I haven't, and I have to check that out, too, because I've heard nothing but great things about it. Nice. Two more calls left. We're going to go to Brian Scott and Brian Scott sent me an email as he always does. And he says, Cobra commander for life. And I got to give a special shout out to my boy, Brian Scott. I love you, my friend. Sent me a Cobra Commander t-shirt. Oh, my God.
I will be wearing this shirt with love many, many, many, many times. I love, love, love G.I. Joe, and I especially love Cobra Commander. So thank you, Brian Scott. that it's funny i text uh brian last night i talk with him all the time and i said have you made your call yet he goes of course not i gotta be last And he did well with that. And he actually called yesterday, so he was actually early. So let's get his call.
Hey guys, Horror Movie Fanboy here. I tried to pick a director that hopefully nobody will mention, Richard Franklin. And my triple feature for him would be, it'll start with... I saw this movie twice in theaters as a kid, and it was a funny story. In 1984, I would have been eight or nine years old, and me and my family went to the theaters.
And I begged them to see Cloak and Dagger, but they were seeing something else. So they let me go by myself to the theater right next door, you know, in the hallway. And they're like, meet us right outside the theater doors when it's over. When the movies ended, my mom, dad, and sister came out of their movie. I came out of Cloak and Dagger.
And they're like, how was it? I'm like, good. They said, well, we actually saw a trailer for it for our movie, and it looks good. Do you want to go see it again? I'm like, yes. So I saw this movie back to back. My parents bought four tickets and they came in and saw the movie. So I watched it back to back. In 1984. And I love this movie so much. With Henry Thomas just coming off of E.T. And Dabney Coleman in a dual role.
Then I'll throw on a couple horror movies. Psycho 2, he directed. Very underrated sequel. And then let's cap it off with Road Games from 81. Jamie Lee Curtis and the great Stacey Keech. Fantastic movie. L-O-T-C for life. Awesome. Another great first time mention from Richard Frank. That's awesome. Psycho 2 is really...
More than just a great sequel. It's just a great movie. Yeah. Great. I love Rogaine. And I mean, Richard Franklin has got so much. He could have chose Patrick. Yeah. He could have chose Link. He could have chose FX2. And squeezed in between it, he also directed the pirate movie. He has a few like that, but Road Games is another good one. Yeah, Road Games, yeah. That's a movie where we believe that American Stacy Keach picks up American Jamie Lee Curtis in the middle of the Outback.
The chances of that are pretty slim. That was back at the time when... australia was was bringing in um actors from well from both the u.s and uh england yeah and get this idea in the movie i just looked him up he did a movie in 1976 called fantastic And it stars, the number one is John Holmes. Oh, I've seen that. That is an adult film. It does not go hardcore, but it does... have quite a bit of nudity in a very
Very bizarre film. A professor explores 10 common female sexual fantasies as described by some of his patients. Yes, exactly. And that's exactly what the movie is. So that would have been an interesting one for the theater. Well, that said, now we've got one more call to go to, and this is going to be from Mr. Gary Hill, who will be our special guest on the next episode. So stay tuned for that. But let's go ahead and go to his voice. Hello, Land of Creeps Horror Podcast. This is Gary.
Calling in, recording in. I do this for my computer. My recordings, it sounds better that way. Either way, here I am to discuss your director's discussion. On your show. And um. Lots of chores. Too many to count, but I had to go with somebody. Because he said one of these has to be horror, so...
Not like you're forcing my hand here or anything, but I went with Joe Dante. Graduated of the Corman School of Hard Knocks, and, you know, for so many things to his benefit, you know, his ability to make things out of the cheap, make things out on, you know... on budget, all of the above here.
Let's get down to it, and this wonderful genre filmmaker. My horror choice of this, because he does many stuff in different genres, so I have to show love to many, many things, is Gremlins. It's a, you know... Holiday film. It's a horror film. Creatures are great looking. I'm one of those people who prefers Gremlins 2 or Gremlins 1, but that's more of a comedy.
I just love the fact that Gremlins was so successful, they just gave Joe Dante money to say, Hey, invite all of your friends to be in this movie, and we're going to sit down against the wall and see what sticks. And I love that about Gremlins, too.
It's still Gremlins 1. It's like comparing Grease to Grease 2. Grease 2 is the better film, but you know, Gremlins 2 is very, very serviceable. It deserves... deserves your love but gremlins is uh the top dog of those two but uh that's my horror choice um Semi-horror choice is this perfect triple feature, of course. Has to be the Burbs. The Burbs is Joe Dante's masterpiece, in my opinion. I've seen an accident this morning where a guy hit a pole.
You know, of course, you had to see what was going on. And, you know, this side of the other, one of those things you have to do. This personifies the mentality of the people that live in a cul-de-sac. and you know what they talk about and what they look at and when something's different what they discuss This takes it to an extreme, and I appreciate so many performances to this movie with his top hang. Eric Dugerman, or Bruce Dern.
or the family, Brother Theodore Henry Gibson, and, of course, core legend Courtney Gaines, you know, rounding up the... Damn. Oh, well. She came with the frame. Either way, the Burbs is a fucking masterpiece. I would love to talk about Corey Feldman, but we don't talk about Corey Feldman a lot because he's in Gremlins and the Burbs, but you know, he is what he is. Egotistical. Whatever. Said about him, Joe Dante. Joe Dante, my third choice for Joe Dante, would be... This is rough. Third choice.
You've got many, many great things. My third choice would be his love for directors in general, and his shows and matinee were... John Gibbon plays Lawrence Wolsey, who's basically William Castle, the king of the showmen in theaters. He, you know, has seat buzzers in this one. He does, you know, creates an earthquake in the theater, and it's just... takes that and slam-bams it into... you know, coastal Florida where the Cuban Missile Crisis is happening and it's got great characters in it.
I just love Madness so much. So that's my third choice for Mr. Joe Dante. It's probably my shortest voicemail ever. But, you know, that's a good thing. because I do really, really long ones normally. But, yeah, Joe's amazing. If you listen to the podcast, the movies that made me, him and Josh Olsen, throw down on there, and I appreciate Joe even more. Eerie Indiana was one of the big linchpins of me loving Joe.
It's a TV show he worked on in the early 90s. And I just, it's hard to pick three because there's so much good stuff. You got Innerspace, you know, which is underrated. You've got Explorers, which is underrated. I don't want to take away from him. His segment in Twilight Zone movie. Again, all come from Corman. Jonathan Demme, Roger Corman. And there's so many films that he's probably uncredited, you know, for directing. But I'm going to leave it at that.
Joe Dante, my man in genre cinema. I could have picked anybody else, really. There's so many directors, but I could have picked anybody else. Love Knows No Bounds for... A old-fashioned monster kid like me. Thanks again, Land of the Creeps, for all that you do. Hello to everybody on the show. Greg, Pearl, Dave. And that other guy, what's the guy's name? Oh, fuck. Bill. That's that guy's name. Nah, I kid. I know who Bill is. But thanks again, and thanks for keeping horror alive. Bye-bye now.
There we go, Mr. Gary Heel. Coming in with Joe Dante. Another Joe Dante. Let the love continue. So the only ones who were repeated, we had John Carpenter by The Callers twice. I think twice. It was only twice, right? But then Joe Dante, along with you, Greg, two others. So three times for Joe Dante. That is something. I know. Here I was thinking, nobody's going to pick Joe Dante.
Like nobody's going to pick, you know, they're going to pick John Carpenter. And that's why I ended up not choosing John Carpenter. I said, well, Yeah, that's going to be chosen a lot tonight. So I said, I'll go ahead because I'd already fold the curtain back. I'd already chose John Carpenter in our group chat, and that's who I was going to go with. And I'm like, nah, last minute, I was like, I'm not doing John Carpenter. I'm going to, I'm going to go a different route.
And there we go. I don't know if you want to throw them out, but there were a couple that I almost chose. Second thought, I should have gone with Cronenberg. I was going to go with William Lustig. Yeah. And then I was going to, I seriously considered Olaf Ittenbach. Oh, yeah, there you go. Burning Moon would have probably been one of them anyway. Yeah, he's got a bunch, but I wanted one that the audience would enjoy. Yeah, mine was a little rough.
Yeah, Dario Argento was mine. That's who I was going to go with. Yeah, I was shocked you didn't choose. I was going to choose him. I was going to choose Brian De Palma because I absolutely love both of them. And then I was going to do Alfred Hitchcock. I was going to pick one of the three.
Yeah, because those are my three. When you look at my top five directors of all time, John Carpenter, number one, Alfred Hitchcock, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, all these guys are in my top five to ten. What would you have chosen, Sisters?
I would have chose sisters. I was going to go with Phantom of the Paradise to get everybody kind of dancing, get everybody kind of in a good spirited mood, you know, and then I was going to go with the other two was going to be Raising Cain and sisters because of the split personality type. and this twin sister thing so i was going to roll what was the one with nicholas cage uh we went to vegas snake eyes snake eyes snake eyes yeah no no no yeah eight millimeter was that one uh
See, I'm looking back right now. Yeah, Snake Eyes and Raising Cane. Of course, Body Double. There's so many I could have chosen. Body Double. It is a little sleazy, but it's a good film. It's a damn good film. I could just see Greg hosting this. He kicks it off at Family of the Paradise. He said everybody's up and dancing. He comes up and goes, oh, can everybody sit the fuck down? It's time for sisters. Yep. He's going to get some visceral butt.
But you did get some boobies in there, so you got that. But Greg does love his beef. Yeah, I ain't damn right I do. Pearl, was you going to throw any other ones out, or was Wes Craven always it? I was between Toby Hooper and James Wan. I just kept going through the whole thing. Yeah, you mentioned James Wan a couple times, too. You were like, James Wan, James Wan. And you ended up backing out of it. Yeah, I backed out. I almost went with Eric Redd. He did Bad Moon. He did 100 Feet.
I think, did he do Red Rock West, which would have been like sort of outside of horror, but been more of a... He did Near Dark and Body Part. Well, he wrote, I know he wrote Near Dark. He wrote the script for Near Dark because that was a Catherine Bigelow one. I almost went with Catherine Bigelow, too. Just so I really wanted to, because, you know, with Near Dark.
But I really want to get Strange Days in there because I haven't seen Strange Days yet. And that's more of a science fiction. But I really wanted to check that one out. But yeah, I mean, Bad Moon, I think we've talked about that's another werewolf one. A Hundred Feet is a very underrated movie with Famke Jansen, which she's under house arrest and stuck in the house with the husband she killed, the ghost of the husband she killed. tormenting her and she can't leave the house.
Yeah, I love that movie. Pearl introduced that one. Another one I almost went with was Ben Wheatley. Oh, yeah. Ben Wheatley would have been an interesting. Kill list in the earth. Oh, it's the one where they eat the mushrooms. A field in England. A field in England. Yes.
There is so many ways we could have went with this. I could have went down a lot of the Italian genre, but I stuck with that one. And this has been a blast, man. But we got to go to Dr. Shock one more time. Dave Becker, what do we got for the last or last? What is what do we have? Al, that we're at the last of this episode, what do we have for the next episode of LOTC? All right. Well, first off, he did not direct Red Rock West. That was John Dahl. So that's on me.
But anyway, the next episode, as mentioned, is number 425. We are getting back into our look at the 1990s, and it is the top five of 1993. Gary Hill special gift. Gary Hill, special guest. Absolutely. super super excited about that cannot wait most of you've heard from gary you just heard him on the voicemail just now so uh gary's super cool dude and i can't wait to see what he brings to the table his top five yes and his calls sound like podcasts so it's it'll be great to have him on the app
Absolutely. How long ago was it we had them on? Was it about a year ago? It's probably been that long, I would say, yeah. I think so, yeah. So we love Gary, man. Appreciate him. So that said, That is the episode. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed doing this. This has been fun, Dave. I really appreciate the topic and the subject. Yeah. It's cool to do some stuff like that. I'm glad. It was a lot of fun.
Absolutely. So I think now we'll just go ahead and start passing around our outros. We'll go around the horn, starting with you, Dr. Shock. What you got in closing for this episode? Well, just this was this was great. And I like the idea of of of focusing on an actor. Next, we could just we could we could take an actor. We can pick three movies. That would be a lot of fun, too. But same as always, DVDinfatuation.com.
slowly closing in on 3,000 reviews. As a matter of fact, a review posted this morning, and I want to say it was $2,996. Wow. So we're definitely closing in maybe $29.95. I can't remember. It's whatever Sam Whiskey, the Burt Reynolds movie from 1969 is. That's the one that posted today. So, yep, keep an eye there. Probably by mid-May, Review 3000 will post over there.
You know, I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook, obviously, with the Land of the Creeps group. If you're not there, definitely join up because we have so much fun over there. Such a great community, a very supportive community at the Land of the Creeps. And as far as other podcasts, of course, the DVD Infatuation podcast. And another one, well, that's not considering the cinema. Jay the Dead's considering the cinema. And another one on considering the cinema is the weekly watch list.
where, you know, Mac Robbins and Jay and myself get together and talk about what we've watched for the week. And, of course, Jay of the Dead's new horror movies with Greg and a plethora of other hosts. Definitely check it out. I'm sure there are a review coming up soon of Popeye the Slayer Man. For those who are waiting with bated breath to hear about.
That's cinematic treasure. And I don't know. I haven't seen it. So I'm being I'm being, you know, kind of snarky here. But without having seen the movie, for all I know, it could make people's top ten less at the end of the year. I'm doubting it. But who knows? Stranger things have happened, though maybe not quite that strange. But anyway, yes, I'm looking forward to the next episode and getting together to do this all over again. Absolutely. And it was 2,995 with Sam Whiskey, 1969. Thank you.
Thank you for that. I couldn't remember the exact number. I knew it posted today. Yep, absolutely. Head over to DVDinfatuation.com, which is his blog site where he has been doing this for many, many, many years. Since before I started podcasting. I started the blog before I started podcasting. Yeah, so it's been a long time. If you hear the... This is hilarious. I gotta let everybody know this happened one other time earlier tonight. It sounds like somebody pouring a glass.
And it's Pearl's phone. Some since your last update. There was an update that Android did on our phones. All of a sudden, for some reason, it randomly does that pouring sound and there's nowhere on her phone she can find where she can shut it off. Oh, wow. Yeah, I have like everything on my filters and everything. I got everything on vibrate or off and it's like...
I looked on every single notification, every single setting. I cannot find the damn thing. And it's been ringing at every awkward moment. We were in the theater the other night watching the Mickey Mouse movie and literally right at a silent moment here. no it wasn't just there when we were at the theater now i obviously had to use you know the ladies room I mean, this thing was peeing before I was. I mean, freaking person next door.
It's almost set up as an alarm, because like an alarm, even if your phone's on silent or vibrate, it will still, you know, ring out loud, right? So it's almost set up like that, but she can't find anywhere where this... And it just does it randomly like in the middle of nowhere. I was like, what am I supposed to do? I mean, my phone's thirsty, I guess. It's hilarious. We'll be just watching TV and all of a sudden you hear it just pouring and we're like, what the hell?
I just think Pearl might have ruined an intense moment in the Mickey Mouse movie. i know right yeah she totally with the pouring there is no way to ruin that movie it was ruined from the beginning like it was from the opening it was ruined for the moment said hey i got an idea for a mickey mouse horror movie The best part of that movie, and I'll spoil the shit out of this, is the best part of that movie was at the beginning of it when David Thornton, who plays Art the Clown, who plays...
you know uh will willy in this what's uh steamboat willy steamboat steamboat mickey or willy whatever the hell it is him and the director at the beginning of this movie came on and did a little intro that said Welcome to the theater. The best way to watch this movie is on the big screen. So get up and clap and cheer.
and hooping or whatever and enjoy the movie. And then the movie went shit. It just literally went to crap after that. I know, I thought that when I saw that. I was like, oh boy, we're in for something. I did too. Now after watching the movie, I was like, oh God.
He gave us something. Yeah, it was like literally that was the best part of the movie, seeing David. It's funny, the other day I was flipping around YouTube trying to find a movie to watch and I typed in 2025 horror films to see if anything was there. And I watched one called Mouse of Horror. Yeah, I think it's another one, yeah. Unfortunately, there's too many things going into public domain now. Popeye and Steamboat Mickey. It's not Mickey Mouse. It's just that...
steamboat character. Exactly. That's passed into public domain and Bambi is in public domain. I keep waiting for the Paddington Bear horror. When that becomes public, I mean, that'll really be something. Winnie the Pooh, of course, but it's not the Disney Winnie the Pooh. It's the literary Winnie the Pooh. So all of these beloved children's characters. Felix the Cat. I'm surprised that one hasn't yet because Felix the Cat goes back to that.
that time period as well. I'm surprised that one hasn't passed into public domain, but I don't think enough people know, even if it did not enough people nowadays, no feel it's the cat to, uh, to even care. I keep waiting for killer Eeyore. Could be coming. Oh, bother. I guess I'll kill you. I love it. Or the guy with the yellow hat turns out to be a flasher.
What's Curious George swinging from? Well, this is their list that they have planned. The Carnival Kid, which I don't remember. Daffy Duck, Flash Gordon, Batman, and Pluto. Pluto. Wow. The man in the yellow hat. You were talking about Curious George, right, Phil? Yep. Yep. That's what I figured. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. Well, let's head over to Bill. What you got in your final thoughts and closings? Final thoughts. This is a lot of fun. We could have talked forever about.
I mean umpteen number of directors and producers and things You know, if there's any movie out of what we talked about today that sparks your interest, dive in. Because everyone we've mentioned and everyone the callers brought up are all quality directors. So don't be afraid to jump in, pull a bill and go into Tubi and just never find yourself out. So enjoy yourself. I would also like to thank everybody for listening to my podcast, Music, Movies, Sports and Stuff.
It had a really good reception. I've heard a lot of good feedback on it. So the way I'm planning on doing it is Tuesdays is Land of the Creeps. Thursdays will be... MMSS, as I call it, music, movie, sports and stuff. So check it out. It's on all your major podcatchers. Give it a look. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. I don't care who you tell. Just tell somebody. Anyways.
Let's have a great time, everyone. I know that right now, I'm just hoping I don't have to go outside and shovel. Let's just hope. Everybody, let's enjoy ourselves. Let's be good with each other. Let's enjoy ourselves. Let's keep horror alive. Elbows up, everybody. See you later. All right, Pearl, what you got for closing love and outros? Well, I'm having fun watching Honey, I Trunk the Kid. And the same time, this was a fun episode. Thank you, Dave. And also too, um...
I'm hungry, so I'm ready to go eat something, and it's going to be something sugary, of course. Of course. I mean, I'm in the main LOTC group page, and anywhere Gregor Morris is at. And by the way, remember... Roll call. Everyone. Yeah, roll call. Seriously. Everybody check in so we'll know that unknown caller hasn't come and found you. So roll call. So that's it. Love you, Pearl.
So that said, you can follow me at Facebook, Instagram, X, all them spots. YouTube, man, doing a lot more over on YouTube. So if you haven't been over there, I would.
love for you to check it out Pearl and I whenever we go to the theater now we're doing mini reviews I'm calling it going to the cinema so you can get our little five to ten minute little mini spoiler free reviews so that's over there now and plus some been picking up a lot of movies lately so posting stuff like that so all kinds of good fun stuff on youtube and i got uh something else
brewing that's going to happen on youtube really soon that i just want to uh give you a little teaser it's coming soon so be ready so with that said uh help keep horror alive we do that one movie at a time one review at a time until next time Muahahaha! All right, Bill, where'd you go? There he is. I think like with my breakfast in the morning, I love adding fiber one. I think it tastes great. It's good for you.
I think tonight I just might shit myself. What? I took too many of them and I'm like, oh, God. What is it Cheech and Chong said? Butt cheeks don't fail me now. Yeah, right. We were on, we cut Pluto on the other day. We do Pluto a lot just to have something shitting on. And literally Nice Dreams was on. And right behind it came, oh, shit. so yeah so with nice dreams which is a good one it's not a great but it's a good one
And then we get that whole epic. Up in Smoke, that's our first one, I think, isn't it? Yeah, I believe it is. Yeah, I think that's the first one. Yeah, that was the first one. Don't look at the cousins. What is it? He's got a facial mark or something on his face. There's a line in that. It cracks me up with this. This guy comes in. We goes, oh, I got some good shit for you, man. He gives them and. And Chag is like, oh man, this stuff is awful. This is shit. The guy's like...
As I said, what are you talking about? I get high as I get high as all that. He's like, man, you must get high on grass clippings, man. When he starts freaking out, when he finds out he's been smoking labradoodle, he's like. What the fuck is that? What have I smoked? What have I done? And he starts panicking like, oh my God. What's the one where they're with Rip Taylor in the car? And Rip Taylor keeps like cracking these jokes and Tommy Chong is reacting to them.
And they're like, they're these bad jokes, every single one of them. And Chong finally goes to Chief Spirit. He's like, make him stop, man. And Chief's like, well, you got to stop laughing at him. He's like, I'm not laughing, man. I'm crying. Make him stop. I think he's the one that thinks are tough all over. That might be the one, yeah, when they're in the car. I think that might be the one. The other one I haven't seen in ages, I think since I was a teenager, was The Corsican Brothers.
Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen that one in a long time either. I've seen it one time, dude. And they were both in yellow beer. Which was made by like half of the Monty Python troupe. Graham Chapman, I think it was his last movie, as a matter of fact. And Marty Feldman died while making that movie. He actually had a heart attack before finishing his scenes. Oh, man. So it's kind of a little bit of a curse movie, but they star in that.
As a matter of fact, Chong plays like the king of something and Cheech is like his advisor or something like that. It's not a great movie. As a matter of fact, John Cleese And Graham Chapman is a very close friend of his. He said, probably one of the five worst movies ever made. Well, I can't wait to watch the Holy Grail. I picked that up finally. Oh, that's such it. So great. That's so fun.
And what it is, is it's them doing skits still. It's still the skit format, but it's all around a central theme. You know, like it's they're just like, dude, there's like you have the Dark Knight sketch and you have the burning the witch sketch and things like that. But it's all around King Arthur.
Yeah, well, that's kind of so makes it it follows sort of a narrative, but it's still a bunch of, you know, the whole thing. Camelot, Camelot. And they go through the song. No, let's not go to Camelot. Tis a silly place. Well, it's a little more cohesive than. Not Life of Brian. Meaning of Life.
Meaning of Life was sketches, too. And at the end, it's like, you know, now the meaning of life. And Michael Palin opens it up. Well, nothing really, you know, really special. Eat healthy, try to live a good life. You know, it's like it's just the basic stuff. What I love about Meaning of Life is the musical sequences in that. You know, like they have...
Every sperm is sacred. Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? Yeah, that's like a quick little one, but every sperm is sacred because they're Catholic. And every time they have intercourse, they have to have a baby. I mean, there's a scene Terry Jones plays the mother and a baby drops out. He goes, oh, get that. Would you, Deidre? Well, I literally woke up one Sunday morning and Pearl had, it was playing, it was on.
So I roll over and I'm like, damn, this has got to be Monty Python. I watched like 12 minutes of the movie and I instantly went and picked up my phone, grabbed Amazon, ordered the movie. I said, all right, I'm ordering it. I'm a fan of Meaning of Life, too. I remember when that came out. And that was pretty much the last full Monty Python movie. That's the last time all six of them worked together was on that film.
I remember watching it in high school and I loved it with the student teacher rugby game. yes and then the sex education where the students are treating it like they're in calculus or something well she goes John Cleese says something like what's the best way to get your woman in the mood? And one kid goes, have you petting? Yeah. And then the other one goes, rub the clitoris. He's like, kiss boy. I don't have to go stampeding for the clitoris.
Just give her a kiss. And he's got that bed that falls down like it's at the board. And they're talking about things like... Oh, I told the Swiss would be over for dinner. Well, if we must. Three is an interesting, is a very interesting year. I actually was sort of. That was when Jackie and I were first dating, so I didn't get to see too many horror movies around that time. You didn't have a romantic night to the good sun?
No, after Army of Darkness, that pretty much killed it for the rest of my day. I don't wanna be a tattooed millionaire. You always have a song to come back with. There you go. I was singing Bruce Dickens. First off, I went upstairs and I was like, Jesus Christ, I heard some creepy sounds. And I was like, what the hell is that?
I never shut off my Blu-ray of Alien 3 and it's on the menu screen. It's making all these weird noises. The xenomorphs. Exactly. And all of a sudden you hear. I walk up there.