H!TITDS - Spawn of the Slithis (1978)

Jack, I don't know why you have to put on all your clothes. You're only going to the living room. Wear that nice robe I bought you. For 42 years, I have gotten out of bed and put on my clothes. I detest bathrobes. Why you bought it is still a mystery to me. Now, unless you want to go check on the dog, shut up! All right. Everything is ready, my darling. Do not be afraid. Soon we'll be together again.

this sandwich tastes dry as hell. Hello and welcome to hello this is the doomed show I am Richard folks

I am much better now that I've seen Slythus.

Your outlook on life will improve once you've gotten Slythed.

It's a life changer.

It's like Star Wars Episode 10, Revenge of the Slythus.

Slythus, yes. Darth Slythus. Darth Slythus. That's hard to say. Never mind.

This is from 1978. And it is directed by, written and directed by Stephen Traxler. I know horror fans are very familiar with that name Because he went on to be a production manager On Waterworld And Windtalkers Yeah, I don't know why people would It was sort of a joke Spoiler alert, because this is a long trailer But it's kind of great

But it's a great trailer

So we're going to go ahead and drop this long trailer in here So just get comfy and enjoy yourselves with this magic.

It was a California summer, and in a sleepy little town called Venice, life seemed so easy. Until that night, when terror stopped. And then things could never be the same. It's lit. Spawn from a nuclear hell, it forages for food to survive. And last night's brutal slayings brings to seven the total number of Venice residents murdered in this bizarre series of ritualistic mutilations. The locals are in panic. Sure we're scared. Damn scared. Where will this flesh eater feed next?

My favorite thing about the trailer right at the get-go is talking about how it's summertime in Venice Beach. And I'm like, no, people are running around their winter coats. There's nobody at the beach at all.

But my thing is both Walt and I want to know exactly what that flippant survival kit was. What does that entail?

We will talk about the marketing for this movie and how it almost got people killed. I've got quite a wonderful story from good old Stephen Thrower, his book Nightmare USA, a beautiful book. I really wish they'd re-release it. I'm sure, you know, resourceful people will find a copy online. I'm going to read from the Media Home Entertainment VHS. It proclaims, Finally, nature unleashes its revenge. And it's I-T ' S, not I-T-S. Here's the plot.

And that's all you get.

Do you think that maybe Slithus actually wrote this?

And that's why it was so bad, because he had that vision, the Slithus vision.

The plastic bottle, yeah.

Yes, yes.

This was a listener request from our good pal, Glenn Del Rossi. If you get a chance, check out his amazing Instagram.

Okay thank you, what is that about i don't know because that's but they're saying that's the character in the movie yep yep i don't think that's right i i uh had the subtitles and they

make multiple references to her name being jeff it is jeff what is that short for jeffrina

jeffrina jeff lean okay jeffrey may so the movie opens up and we've got a big fluter

Fluting away, blowing his flute on the music score I apologize to the composer Of this music, this is Steve Zuckerman He made the music for this and I thought it was library tracks I honestly thought they'd source this from Public domain old timey library But no, he actually composed the music for Slithis And it's a professional sounding score But it's not, I don't like it not a big fan of the music in this movie it's fine i bet a year later someone gave him his

street signs in this movie and richard i foresee a road trip for you and i in the near future then

yes we're gonna do the uh the slithus location scouting i hope someone else has done that I would watch that I don't want to go to california it's far away it's far away mark and slithus is there i know it's scary scary stuff um tell us about the slow-mo i guess i don't quite

why it's slow-mo other than to kill time because like you don't need to see a chubby kid throwing a frisbee or running in slow-mo but darn it you get that he was husky mark he was a husky okay so i want to point out he looked like little fat mark as a child like that was what i look like so i in a way inadvertently star in slip it you had some memories come back from that from seeing him i did i'm like oh my gosh that yeah that was me except i believe the child was not caucasian

little fat mark on the throwing frisbee. Yep and they do this cool sound effect when he throws the frisbee they like added a weird like to the to the frisbee and it's just it's very dramatic and uh the kids go over the hill and what do they find on the shoreline of this

Oh, the poor poof-its.

Yes.

The death of the dog. But the one dog is clearly breathing. His little tummy is going up and down. So I'm like, oh, what good boys or girls.

Oh boy. I was so glad they weren't real. I mean, they were real, but I'm glad they weren't dead.

Yeah, no, they were especially skin like that.

That's amazing. That's amazing. This comes to the attention of our hero, sort of, Wayne Connors, played by an actor named Alan Blanchard. Mr. Connors is a teacher who does not give a shit about his job, or he just has disdain for his students in general. We meet him and his wife, Jeff. Jeff is played by Judy Matulski. And now Jeff, according to the writer, director of this movie, he wanted her to be annoying. That was his intention with this character, which I don't find her annoying.

I find Wayne way more annoying.

I know.

Yeah. But now really quick. So automatically there's a scene where they're in bed and she has her, so it's a profile. And I thought, oh my gosh, this could be Bring Steven.

Ooh, she does have that look about her. Good call.

And then Wayne, if they couldn't get the actor they got, I thought for sure it would be Burt Convy or Steve Guttenberg.

Dude, dude, Burt Convy. I'm going to go for him over Guttenberg. That's perfect casting right there. Maybe if Greg from Brady Bunch is a little older, it may be him too. But yeah, that's freaking awesome. So they're having a discussion about this, whatever's killing these dogs, because he himself found a dog by the water that was similarly flayed or whatever. And he doesn't care about being late for work. He just wants to talk about this monster with her. It's very cute.

that's why he's mad he can't see.

Only in his eyes, yeah so we get monster vision and he breaks into a couple's house and this movie very confidently shows the monster in shadows but pretty clearly especially on the blu-ray you can really see this monster but what's important is this couple mark what is the deal with jack and his wife

Well, clearly Jack and Helen have other issues other than a sea creature in their house. They definitely have. I bet there's no communication other than like just belittling and griping at each other because they are so hateful.

Yeah.

They need marriage counseling. I think that's why Phyllis broke in, honestly. Oh. Because all they do is like fight with each other.

He was a proto better help counselor. He was doing a home visit and things went wrong. yeah i love this so um there's this noise and he hates their dog because the dog like will get out and destroy things and so he doesn't want to get out of bed he's yelling about this dog and when he finally convinces him to get up because there's so much noise out in the in the house he gets up

starts getting dressed like fully dressed fully dressed and she does that every morning richard

yes honey put on your robe he's like i'm not wearing that stupid thing i've been getting dressed for 42 years uh he's very set in his ways this is wonderful love him which is that why she

keeps a pistol in her nightstand yes that's how set in his ways he is um he gets murdered

immediately by the creature off camera and then she goes out with the gun and does that hilariously i don't know how to hold a gun thing where if you fired a gun like that it would probably just hit you in the face so she's shooting at it of course bullets have no effect on it she gets killed off camera as well but we see their corpses.

Now did you notice that like jack is just kind of bloody but her skin has been sucked right off of her yes she's like a skeleton lane.

She was more delicious than him because her face is eaten off when they show her.

Now, do you think if he had just worn a robe, it would have been easier to tear it off and then his flesh as well? It was like too much work. It was like unwrapping a candy bar.

Yep, yep.

And Felicis didn't have time.

He smartly put on his clothes and spared himself the worst of it.

Damn. Damn, mutt, that's it. Jack, what is it? Is Regal all right?

At school the next day, one of Mr. Conner's irritating students, because he teaches journalism, and one of his students shows up, interrupts he and Jeff talking, and is playing the radio for him about this couple has been murdered. So he wants to go check it out. And that's when Jeff tells him, you're not a journalist. You're a journalism teacher.

But yet he has a past. Did you notice he points that out later? Yes.

Yes. In order to become a journalism teacher, he became a journalist first. Couldn't cut it. And those who can't journal have to teach journalism. I think that's how that works.

Right. Now, just really quick, the two students, I want them to have their own sitcom, and I would watch that religiously.

Yes. Dude, that would be awesome.

Yeah, I love those two.

They would have really, like, one of them would have, like, a really unflattering nickname. And the other one would be, like, just a normal. It would be, like, Jamie and Scraggleface or something like that.

Yeah, I was thinking Spex. Because she had those white glasses on. Oh, man.

Spex and Scraggleface. This girl does not have a Scraggleface, whatever that is. That's just the first thing I thought of.

He's got a cop and, and he offers him a cough drop and everything slowly because he can't do it fast because the cop might get, you know, jittery and shoot him. But there's no reason for this officer to have a cougher. It doesn't play into anything at all.

It is an affectation of the character to have this cough. And it gives them something to do because Wayne Connors offers him a eucalyptus drop. And it's just so cute. But that gives him this in to like, kind of like, all right, I've started a convo with this cop. We're going to talk about it. The funniest thing I noticed, and I might be mistaken, the cop, his holster is completely empty. There's no gun in his freaking holster that I could see. So he was just going to beat him up if he got fresh.

Do you think that was a subplot and actually Helen had stolen the gun that was in the nightstand?

Those were his parents. He was coughing from grief.

Oh.

Yeah, it's sad. Our pal, Mr. Connors, he finds some slime on the ground and he gathers it to take to my real favorite character of the movie, Dr. John.

Dr. John.

I love this guy so much. He's like a goodish looking kind of guy. He's a little short, I think, but he has this like amazingly weird voice.

Yes. It's almost like if a praying mantis or stick bug, a stick bug had sex with John Denver. Because that's kind of John Denver-y, but he's also incredibly thin.

That's a hottie right there. Would you like to know more about this actor, Mark?

I would.

His name is Dennis Fault, F-A-L-T. it's not his fault that he's named that 206 credits he is a voice actor and a dancer if he now yes he has shown up in hundreds of things video game narration video game characters and he's just like this weird dude um he's got a bunch of dancing credits recently so maybe he was

there to fill out a dance club scene or something. Automatically when you said dancer i thought he had to have been on the cariburnette show during the musical numbers because he looks like one of those dancers you would see lots of chest hair yes tops would be incredibly tight.

Yes, he did the narration for iron chef for an episode of iron chef he narrated some speed racer in the 90s he played three characters in a video game I absolutely love called Castlevania: Symphony of the

Night, which is just a masterpiece of a video game. Fear has no form. Fear has no name. But now fear has an address. Castlevania Symphony of the Night from Konami.

But yeah, he's everywhere. This blew my mind. He's got an uncredited role as Soviet submarine captain in Godzilla 1985. So he must have been living in Japan? Or they had scenes with like, oh God, what's his name? Milton Berle? I'm sorry, Raymond Burr. Raymond Burr.

Raymond Burr. Raymond Burr.

Sorry, I got the ray right. So there you go. So when they came over to shoot those scenes with Raymond Burr, They shot some scenes with some Russian, AKA American actors. So yeah, crazy career, but I love his voice. His voice sticks out to me, which is funny that he became a voice actor. I love it. Once he gets some of this slime to fricking analyze, then Dr.

It's just endless exposition like everything you need to know he just dumps it right on them right there i guess most importantly uh no wait is he the one who brings up the radioactivity and the or cultist or is that what everyone yeah yeah so i'm like how do those two correlate with each Like I've never once thought of Satan is messing around with radioactivity,

but they should.

Apparently they should.

Yep. They're doing it wrong without it.

Now I'd also like to point out just how sexy Wayne is in his denim jumper.

Holy shit. Thank you for remembering to mention that. Cause I was going to forget, you know, he's got his hands in his pockets of what I thought was his jean jacket. Then the camera pans back or he walks, you know, more into frames. We can see the whole outfit and yep. Denim jumper and lieta goes is that a canadian tuxedo but not only like is he wearing that but

i'm thinking it's gotten him sex it's worked because jeff is still sticking around.

Yes it is tight it's a it's a tight jumper my favorite thing about jeff during all this stuff so so john is laying down the giant freaking exposition like you said they keep cutting to shots of jeff smiling with a little bit of incredulity in her eyes. And then sometimes they cut to her and she's not making any expression at all. Like she's waiting for action.

Yeah, Richard, she just didn't understand it. I was so confident.

None of it made sense.

What?

Sorry, Jeff.

About 20 years ago, a nuclear reactor at the experimental test facility at Lake Sherwin, Wisconsin was discovered to be leaking an infinitesimal amount of radioactive byproduct into the lake. This installation, by the way, is the forerunner of a modern day nuclear power plant, like the one two miles down the coast here.

Next, we cut to some, some bums, some, and I don't mean butts, although these two bums have butts. They're, they're sleeping in by an old boat. Well, drinking and sleeping by an old boat along the canal. Mark, tell us about these cool dudes.

Well, I have my questions about the one cool dude, but we'll talk about that later. Anyway, so yes, the one, and they're on tires, two discarded tires. And it bothered me that the one had his back pocket of his jeans cut open. But like, was it his underwear sticking out of the back? Very disturbing. Anyway.

He had a lot of patches all over his pants. Very confusing.

A lot of patches, but it's Bunky and Preston. and Preston's had way too much to drink or smoke maybe. But what I find disturbing is it's made mention that he's basically defecated in his pants. And that disturbs me because later there's another scene, and he pretty much, I think he really did defecate. Not actuality, but like the character was supposed to have done so. And I'm like, you're wearing the same pants.

Oh, I'm dying. It's so great. It's so great. This is Preston and Bunky. Now, Preston, he looks so much like another actor who he was the shitty boyfriend from Candyman. I'm trying to remember that actor's name.

I recast him as Jeff Cotter.

Ooh, that's a good casting.

A taxi in Greece.

Let's see.

I can't even picture the shitty boyfriend from Candyman.

He looks to me like Xander Berkeley. Xander with an X from Candyman and Air Force One, Terminator 2, big time. I thought this was him like really young, but it's just his brother, his brother from another mother playing Preston. But yeah, what was he doing in 78? Was he even acting by then? No.

He wasn't even conceived yet.

No, he was conceived in 1981. He was the grown-up son of Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest.

Oh, my gosh. I love Mommy Dearest so much.

So, yeah. Yeah, Xander Berkley, not in Slithis. Some guy who vaguely looks like him, now he's in Slithis. But, yes, I love this conversation with these two. It's just so great.

You cracked your pants? God, I was farting. You cracked your pants again, you got? Damn it.

Bunky, he has to go take a leak. So he leaves. And while he's walking away, he starts seeing some bubbles. And then Slithus jumps out of the water and he falls on his face and breaks a bottle and runs away. But he survives. Off camera, we find out that Slithus has killed a young lady.

He's got a taste for flesh and he can't be stopped.

This is the section of the movie I call Desperately Seeking Bunky. Where Wayne Connors, he manages to talk to Preston at the canal. And then he's asking him where his friend is. So he goes looking for Bunky. And what happens when he goes to some Venice Beach spirited residents of Venice Beach at the park?

So they are, I'm assuming they're alcoholics.

Yes.

So these three day drinkers, which you would never put together. So one's like kind of looks like a dock worker with a knit hat. Sure. And the other one I think might have more in common with Bunky than we know. He's got a tank top and sandals and he's a smoker. But there's something about him that I might think he maybe plays for my team. And then the other one looks like a sweat hog that dropped out.

Mr. Carter, my GPA is too low.

And they're also, to me, older than they should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Wayne wants to deliver a message to Bunky. And they're like, oh, just tell us. And he's like, no, no, no, I have to do this myself. So eventually he figures out where Bunky lives.

Yeah, he buys them off with $5 so they can get some wine. All I could think of was Trader Joe's. They have $3.90 wine.

I actually, not because of the wine, but when he was talking about that, I thought of Trader Joe's because, no offense to your listeners, but they look like they would frequent Trader Joe's to me.

Yeah, that's the thing, Mark. Trader Joe's is one of our sponsors, so I think you just want to pick that up, dude.

I am so sorry.

There goes our revenue stream.

Yeah, I would never put these three men together.

No, no. Hey, cheap wine brings together strange bedfellows.

Truly. Then Wayne makes his way to Bunky's place. But it's covered with different sized round mirrors, a disco ball, an alcove with a barber chair in it, and lots of necklaces hanging on the wall. which makes me think does Bucky live an ulterior life, an alternate lifestyle from other people?

Right.

Or does he have a girlfriend or does he have a gay roommate? There's so many questions I now have about Bunky.

Cause you wouldn't think he'd have a place to crash at all.

Let alone that place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, maybe it's the difference between a hobo and a homeless person. He, he chooses the lifestyle.

I thought you were going to say hobo and homo.

I would not say that. I'll let you say that.

Jeff and Wayne have to meet up with another professor.

Yes. Thank you. I almost forgot this guy.

With his bizarre, it's very Californian because it's all like knotty pine, but it's like dome shaped and it's filled with like macrame and mobiles.

Thank you.

Professor has like an incredibly messed up face that no one acknowledges. And it's not really talked about why he looks like someone threw acid on him right before they came over.

Dr. John did mention him. He said he referred to him as a doctor friend who overdosed on radiation, which meant he was like normal people take small doses all the time.

Oh, I thought he just fell asleep. Like he overdosed and then fell asleep in the radiation. And that's what happened to his face.

I almost completely skipped this whole part. I did not know what my note meant. I just wrote one thing. I wrote turtleneck radioactive doctor. So thank you for catching that.

You're fine. But that's where he's the one who mentions the ship owner operator that they should get in touch with him.

Yes. Because they need soil samples from where the power plant is supposedly leaking. They need a diver to go down and get it.

Yes. Thank you folks at home.

I just edited this episode so much. You have no idea how much I struggled just to get to this part of this fucking overly complicated plot, which we love. It's fine.

No, it's never slip. Um,

so he goes to rent a boat and, uh, we get a great character. This is, I believe his name. He introduces himself as Christopher Columbus. Columbus Alexander. And this is, this is a actor named Mello Alexandria, which is amazing. I would have just insisted that I go by that name. Like, yes, I'm playing myself in this movie. He's great. He's the, he's the life of the party. Just, just, just a big boisterous character. Mark, what do you think of this guy?

So I love him, but the minute I saw, so he's, he's, he's a black actor.

Yeah.

The minute I saw him, I thought, oh my God, no, this poor man's not destined to see the end of the movie.

Exactly.

Typical horror movies. Correct. But then we're also treated to an incredibly awkward first interaction between Wayne and Christopher Columbus Alexander. Well, it's 78. So you can't really look at it through today's eyes. You'd have to look at back from the 70s where the race relations were still uncomfortable. Like they didn't quite know how to interact. Like probably Wayne's only other interaction was maybe watching Good Times.

Sure, sure. The avenues for white people to pick up on black culture were much smaller.

Right. It's so strange. And I believe that Christopher even drops the N-word.

He might have said something like telling Wayne how he must see him or something like that. The handshake was awkward. He's like, we'll do it the white way.

It was very awkward.

Very awkward.

Very awkward, yeah. But they became fast friends.

Yes. They have slithers in common.

You know, I don't know how to take you. Be cool and maybe we'll learn about one another together.

they're going to take christopher columbus's boat it's called the creation and they're going to go out to do this whole thing with the uh the the soil collecting the diving and the soil collecting but first i have to talk about the scene we don't see so there's a quick moment where Wayne is talking to his wife Jeff and he says something to the effect of man I still can't believe how much crap the detective gave me about reporting this stuff and my head I did like a whiplash

of them in a scene together later so they cut some shit do you think they did or do you think they

just mentioned it oh scenes were edited out of order later I wonder or they just like oh we'll

we'll drop the detective here we'll put that hint in the viewer's mind and then we'll show the

detective because that's it we'll talk later that makes more sense i like that so tell me

about turtle racing so we're treated to a bar full of people who are actually betting on

film i don't if i'm not mistaken they're slow and time slows down when you're watching yeah

It goes on for quite a while, but we're actually seeing this because Doug, Pornstash Doug, has taken Jennifer. I really do think that – I'm going to defer to you, Richard, because I'm a gay man, so I don't know. Do turtle races like – is it like an aphrodisiac to female?

Yeah, that's how I met Lietta, actually.

I thought so. i i have never gonna get yeah get her hot and bothered something yeah i've never even seen

i've never heard of turtle racing ever before this movie no no maybe i have but you know like it would be children it'd be children trying to race a turtle you know like there was no rabbits to kind of mix it up a little bit you couldn't have any tortoise in the hair going on no no it's really cute it's very cute it looks it's very wholesome it's the most wholesome part of the movie which is funny because this guy doug who is so sleazy is picking up this girl he's picking up

at his swanky pad which is a boat and is it a love boat or a sex ship richard it's it's a

well it features a um an altar to doug that doug made where he there's a there's a great headshot of doug on a table with two candles or on each side for some mood lighting so in case you didn't know you were in a room with doug there's a altar of doug but yeah what's weird is his friend who doesn't live there hangs out in his boat and tries to scare doug so when this person who i don't remember his name rex rex thank you for rex he's hiding in in the in the ship and in the little

I think this has got gay undertones to it. Rex also sounds like he might know Bunky. I think that Rex and Bunky might be roommates.

Yes. He doesn't want to have his mojo crushed by his dorky friend or more than friend. And see, now I'm going to start looking for gay characters in everything we watch.

He also doesn't seem very preoccupied with Doug, even though he's got Jennifer there. He totally does. He is fixated on Doug. Oh, man.

Now I know that.

Doug is fixated on Rex. Yeah.

This is the real reason we pick Slivis, folks. So they hook up on the boat, and things are getting hot and heavy, and he decides to go and get wine? Oh, he's going to lock the door.

Yeah, because she's uncomfortable.

Yes.

And he doesn't really take no right away for an answer. But anyway, she's uncomfortable, so he says, hey, why don't you get naked while I'm gone?

Yes.

So he's planning on coming back from locking the door and she's just all nude and ready to go.

She just wants him to lock the door and he's being a dick about it. I love it.

Oh yeah. Doug is horrible. So gross.

So while he's out there, thankfully Slithis murders him. Unthankfully, Slithis breaks in and goes after her. And again, I got to talk about how confident they were in this monster. They're like, Slivis is on screen, bold as life, well lit, so much in this movie. They love this freaking creature so much. Unfortunately for our pal Jennifer, she takes freaking forever to die because she's a slow-mo dyer.

A slow-mo dyer, and then we get boob and then not boob.

Yep, he rips open her top and then she just turns over like, I did not want to show my boob today.

And then when she's dead, it's covered.

The funniest thing about all this is they recorded her screaming for 20 minutes and tried to use all the screams in one minute. So there's just endless wall to wall screaming, no room for a breath screaming. It's so obnoxious. It was the one time where the movie got on my nerves. I'm like, I started to like turn the volume way down. I was like, no, shut up.

That's my ringtone, Richard.

I know. I know.

Well, see, I was thinking one piece denim jumper.

Right, right. Here's one for Jack and Helen. Could your marriage use help, how to tell, and where to get it?

Slithus. I think Slithus is the answer to everything.

How to tell and where to get it. That didn't make sense. But yes, Slithus is the answer. Here comes the big one. Special guide for working women, how to handle money, men, management, mistakes, marriage, and last but not least, mothering.

you can't have all that richard i know a girl can't have it all women cannot do all that and

then in the smallest font on the bottom right of the cover by the way it's christy brinkley on the

cover hilarious oh i thought that just went without saying oh yeah big year for christy brinkley

in the bottom on the smallest font update on gynecological problems and solutions again richard slithes he's the cause and the solution oh my lord i found that very fun

our journalism teacher and this uh police detective so the detective the lieutenant has already had enough of him from before, but we never saw. But now I feel that this actor is in a different movie.

Than everyone else.

Everyone else. So just in my mind, I know this can't physically happen because of Christians, but in my mind, Charles Nelson Reilly has made it with Harvey Firestein. And that's their offspring is the lieutenant. He's amped up to like 12 when everyone else is maybe at a four. He's just so upset and distraught, but he belongs in like a Sid and Marty Croft show, like H.R. Puff and stuff or Lidsville or something.

Oh, yes. Good call. That's funny. So this is High Pike, H-Y-P-Y-K-E, his biggest movie ever. is Blade Runner. In Blade Runner, when Harrison Ford is shaking people down at this bar with all the ladies dancing with the exotic snakes and whatnot, his contact there is a sleazeball named Taffy. And you would think you would never connect this actor as the same person. Not only does he have totally different, he has no facial hair as this guy Taffy.

It's wonderful on so many levels

Thank you Freaking Glenn Del Rossi For picking this movie Because I did not know It would have taken me years to get to slip this This is great

And if I were not dissatisfied with this mutilation theory myself, you would not be sitting in my office at this time. But I do not believe one word of your slither story. Slithis. Oh, pardon me. Slithis. Story.

Now it's nighttime, and it is the hunt. The hunt is on.

So they're in that station wagon.

Beautiful station wagon.

Whenever I see movies like this, I'm like, yeah. But then like Slinthus like just keeps pounding on it.

Yeah.

And then eventually rips off the door.

Yep. Yep.

Well, I really don't know why they didn't get out the other side because you were pounding on the one side and just exit through the driver's side. They didn't do that. A series of like misfortunate events take place afterwards because the station wagon goes off a cliff and explodes but before doing that it backs up into another car who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and that one topples over yeah they they knock a poor innocent

couple it's like their car goes down the dunes like yeah oh my god it's so funny luckily dr john is not harmed he's still survived i was so scared thank god as was jeff they managed to survive

going bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop

and it comes after them so it goes after Christopher Columbus and Wayne and they have a big battle royale on the boat and your theory about is our black character going to survive does not look very good because he's looks like he's having his guts eaten but they didn't want to kill this character because they wanted to make a sequel someday thank you trivia and so despite looking dead he's okay um they managed to quote unquote kill slithous and they decide to oh my god i'm skipping the

dialogue and they're immediately killed it's so weird immediately killed yeah well i like is it i can't remember if it's mike or nick but like slith is actually like he gets hung upside down and Slythus kills him, but then also bites his stomach

is the last insult. Just chewing on them guts.

Yeah, at the end, they went through all this trouble

No, and plus, this proves your crazy bullshit theories.

Right.

Yes, so they throw him into the water and seconds later Slithus his arm shoots out and grabs Wayne by the leg and he screams we get a freeze frame, the end which I'm so sorry this is like after the fact

but during the fight scene did you notice that Slithus' arm came and went what? go back and watch it I think that Christopher Columbus Alexander was supposed to have cut it off because there's certain scenes where slith is doesn't have his arm and then he's like and he's got his arm again and then he doesn't have it it goes back and forth please go back and watch this

i will they must have screwed up they must have forgotten to shoot something or so blatant the film their shooting schedule was too tight or something oh my god i did not notice that

that's amazing i love it now did you at all watch the italian version with the nudity dropped in

what are you fucking kidding me yeah are you making a joke i'm making a joke oh thank god we saw the one lady's we saw we saw the one lady's boob oh my god can you imagine

but just with like hardcore scenes dropped in without any characters whatsoever

Dude, I've watched over 50 Jess Franco movies.

I was just going to say, it's a Franco.

It's a Franco cut. So if you're watching a Jess Franco movie, if you're watching either a French or Italian version, you're going to get some unrelated penises and vaginas.

You're like, wait a minute, when was Lena Romay in Slithis?

Right, right. I know her body anywhere. Thank you, Jess Franco. Oh my god

couldn't get in and out of every day so yes the director home like oh yeah like when he went home what was home life like for

no I think they're exaggerating I think they just he just had to be in it for 15 hours I was excited

to see like solicits like mow the lawn and then make sweet love

yep yep or he put his clothes on because he always puts his clothes on when he

gets up in the middle always and he's not gonna wear that robe the film was given an R rating

from the MPAA so the filmmakers trimmed it down to PG and then resubmitted it got the PG and then before they screened it, they put all the gore back in. So people were going to see an R-rated movie that was rated PG. There's a fan-made sequel, and I put this in quotes, sequel on YouTube called Behold the Slithis. I found this by accident. On YouTube, Behold the Slithis. It's a feature-length movie shot on video cameras, made by some kids with help from adults.

I pictured tartar sauce.

Ooh, there was a Slithis. That's funny. It's vinegar. the malt vinegar once he fried up. So you could join the Slivis fan club. A lot of this merch was never mailed out to anyone. The Davis guy just pocketed the money, but he was like a really loud braggart who would hype up his connection to famous Hollywood types. Like he swore he was friends with Mickey Rooney. And let me find this here. That was really funny.

Pia Zadora.

Pia Zadora. Davis was described as a small man who is loud and obnoxious, and he used to laugh loudly and say to people, let's be friends now because the fucking comes later, which turned out to be prophetic for everyone else involved because he took all the money. But the best piece of trivia here is Traxler was having trouble getting distribution deals. So he had the money. The movie was made. He was going to be able to show it at a drive-in, but he needed to promote it big time.

That's the power of Flipus.

that's the power of slithous man slithous slips in and never pulls out

that should have been the tagline the other one was behold behold slithous was the

behold the slithous 2013 but yes um tracksler never could make his sequel to this movie it was going to be about christopher columbus because he was so taken with that actor and of course who wouldn't be he's great he wanted a movie that's starring starring him at hunting down the slithers for killing doctor i mean um mr journalism teacher wayne connors but then he has to work with the

lieutenant so it's just the lieutenant and christopher columbus yes yes so or dr john it was

it was dr john jeff and christopher columbus let's assume wayne connors didn't survive his mauling by the slithers but uh yeah man that's me in mourning she ends up in dr john's arms man prolific voice actor dr john oh man but that's all my trivia i i was it was just so much as usual nightmare usa it's overwhelming i could have gone into so much more detail i wanted to give you guys the not abbreviated enough version of what i learned oh but mark what do you think about this

one so i i love slithus so much i think slithus was one of the very first blu-rays that i paid a ton of money for sure the old code red one right uh i think so i know i love slithus i love aquatic horror and it's kind of aquaticy and it's kind of horny sure um but there's just something about I think the fact that you could just tell that the person making it really did it with heart, and he felt like he was really doing something worthwhile. It wasn't just thrown together.

Sure, sure. Yeah, and I think in retrospect, the director is like, oh, we knew it was bad, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I think you thought it was good back in the day. Like, you know, he's, he's kind of trying to admit it has his faults. I'm like, ah, fuck that. It's great. Yeah. This is a great first time watch for me. Oh man. I was so excited. This, this is just fun shit. Um, I love the broken editing with this. There's some corners cut. That's great.

And the turtle race don't forget that the turtle race i wanted more of that that was so wonderful

legs mcgurkle was uh now on the on the freaking doom show mount rushmore now The only other thing I could find about this movie Groovy Doom Is a wonderful, wonderful Site They have zines for sale And they always are Digging through The newspapers Of the times To find drive-in Flyers and movie posters To show What were movies paired with and I found some really fun stuff that Slithis was paired with because Slithis did end up getting out there to the people. It played a lot.

most jarring one would be the phantasm pairing yeah that's that's a weird pairing good call

but i've never seen the 1976 king kong i've seen clips of it from back in the day on cable but I've never watched the whole movie.

Oh, you need to see that.

I do.

I mean, I saw it on original release in the theaters, but it's something else.

Nice.

Yeah. Cool.

So before I let you flee this place and go back to your canal searching to find Slavis, we'd like to do a little segment on the show.

Oh, don't even put that out there. Now I can't sleep, Richard.

eyes wide two in the morning slip is uh before i before you go we have a little segment on here called recently seen and loved and uh we pick a movie any genre could be an old favorite could be unseen or a first time watch rather uh what do you got mark so mine is not an older film it's a

fairly recent film, so I don't want to get too into it. It's called Cuckoo from 2024. Yay! Have you seen Cuckoo?

It is my favorite movie of the year for 2024.

Okay. All right. Yeah. So, director Tillman Singer, I'm actually going to ask your input on my description of it. To me, it seemed like a extended X-Files shot by David Lynch, and just briefly, David Cronenberg popped in and said, hey, let's do this too.

Yep. And let's barely explain the mechanics of what's happening.

Which doesn't bother me at all.

Even though it's really important, but also just like you, I didn't give a fuck. I don't care. I don't need to explain. After all these hundreds and hundreds of monster movies, hundreds and hundreds of science gone wrong, I don't want to hear the explanation. Let me use my imagination. That's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's Germany, so you know that that happens anyway.

Right. That's just how they do things over there.

That's how they roll.

But I'm glad you enjoyed Cuckoo. I love it.

Yeah, no, it's, oh, I love it. I saw it in the theater.

Back in the States, the last thing I saw on the stage. Apparently the Blu-rays are finally shipping, for those of you out there. I have a friend who's been waiting. They accidentally pre-ordered it. They thought they were ordering it, and they waited three months to get a copy of this movie. Excellent choice. Excellent choice. I picked a movie that I used to not like as much as I do now.

if someone's done it like a like a fan dude if i had the time if i was retired i'm not giving you

hints here mark i was just gonna say but if i was retired and i had nothing to do and now i don't believe fan edits are a bad thing at all i've known people are silly about that's like trying to like create a new reality for uh frustrated film fans who are never happy it's like no no no no it's a thought experiment i would love to just see what the movie would be like with those scenes put back in it doesn't replace the original it's not like uh george it sounds like george lucas tinkering

with george lucas gets a hold of it and then we just the original jason takes manhattan we never get to see again unless you own old vhs copies you got to give george credit he told everybody

what he when those blu-rays came out of the original star wars trilogy he's like this is the last time you'll be able to buy these and it was we didn't know about mcclunky anyway enough mcclunky mark thank you for joining me today you are totally welcome i always love

joining you um flippus was just prime prime fodder to be talked about unless you're me and i couldn't

talk about anything today but the listeners won't know what i struggled with the power of flippus Yeah, man, I still got slithes in my system. Folks, thanks for listening. Take care of your pet slithes. Don't let them into the freaking canals. Please don't. Don't let your slithes grow up to be cowboys.

I really am concerned because I also have two dogs. I'm just dangling like fate. I'm tempting fate. I'm like, come on, slithes. Come on.

You've got it you've got to make uh fake dogs you've got to have some uh some standees standees hand puppet stand-ins anyway i'm gonna stop recording this needs to stop