Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb.
And my name is Joe McCormick. It's Monday, the day of each week that we read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never gotten in touch with the show before and you would like to give it a try, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
We give that email address at the end of every regular episode, but at the listener Mail we like to give it here at the top because some people they tell us all the time, in fact, they've listened for years, never written in why not give it a shot. We of course really love and appreciate all of the messages we get, but if you want to be featured on a listener mail episode, you're especially likely to have your message pop up if you've got something interesting to add
to a subject we talked about on the show. Let's see and this first message today exactly that, Rob Do you mind if I kick things off with this response to our series on headless beings?
Yeah, let's have it.
This is from Joe who has written in before with sometimes some great lore from Southeast Asia, and Joe has more to add today, They say, Dear Joe and Robert, I'm a little behind on the episodes and just finished the one on headlessness. Towards the end of the episode there was mention of headless ghosts and divine entities. I'm not sure if you came across this in your research, but I believe the panangalon might be of interest to you, guys.
Lore has it. Panangalon are witches that practice black magic. At night. They detach their heads from their bodies and float around in search of blood, children, pregnant women, and the likes. They are slightly different from other only head in that they still have internal organs trailing after their disembodied head as it flies around. Wow, that's gross, just like soggy organ bags hanging out of the neck stump.
That's that's brutal. Let's see. Their vulnerable headless bodies are hidden away for safe keeping until daybreak, when the floating heads and their entrails return and stuff themselves back into the body and become whole once again. There are similar legends throughout Southeast Asia, known under names like krassu or mananangal. Both penangalon and Mananangol come from the word tongaal, which means to be separated, which is apt for such a creature. Ah,
but there's more, Joe continues. It's said that the smell of vinegar follows them around because they have to soak their innerids in vinegar before they can fit them back into the body. You can ward off these creatures by placing thorny leaves around your house to damage their floating entrails, and you can kill one by stuffing glass and other prickly material into their necks if you find the headless bodies alone. This is gross. I can't believe this.
I was just searching around in my notes because I feel like something related to this has come up before, but I can't place exactly when it was. I don't think I did a monster fact on these, and I wasn't aware of all of these grizzly details concerning this particular variant, but something like this has come up. Maybe I was just poking around for ideas in folklore.
At one point I did not know about this, Joe, I'm gonna have to look this up after we're done. Recording here, but the email continues, they say, on a lighter note, there was some musing about the origins of the quote lock and load sequences in one of the Listener Mail episodes. Yeah, this actually goes back to our weird House Cinema episode on the movie Critters, which feeds is one of these kind of what we ended up learning was widely referred to as the lock and load montage,
but it's featured in every Batman movie. There was a sequence like this in Critters as well, where a character is like putting all of their suit and gear on and you see all the buckles snapping and the like things going into sheaths, all in extreme close up, and then finally there's a reveal of the full suit in all its glory, and we were wondering, what does that go back to, Like where does that film icmeme come from? And we never found a good answer to that.
Yeah, it remains an open question.
Joe has an idea here, they say, I believe those may have been inspired by Japan's common Rider hinchin Superhero series and Magical Girl series that began in the mid to late sixties. The initial common Rider transformations were quite simple, with the protagonists just yelling hinshin and then a shot of a bell or armor appearing later on. Sailor Moon appears to have popularized longer and more drawn out sequences
with more emphasis on various parts of the outfit. These transformation montages can easily be adapted for non magical series just by having the characters getting themselves ready instead of having a device slash magical item address them. In any case, both often involve zoomed in scenes of various parts of the outfit and or weapons, accompanied by thematic music, then completed by a slow pan of the completed ensemble or
full body shot. This also means that the montage of Tony Stark summoning his armor also counts as a magical girl transformation, and then eyeball.
Emojis increasingly magical.
I might add, oh yes, anyway, happy holidays if they're upon you by the time you read this. As always, I love what you do and the im looking forward to more episodes. Joe, Well, Joe, thank you for the great email. As always, and I had not thought to look to like Hinge in Superheroes or Sailor Moon or anything like that, but that is interesting. I could imagine that indeed being the source of this of this meme in film.
Yeah, yeah, I hadn't put this together either, but it makes sense this might be the connection. And yeah, I mean you have anytime you have a creative minds in cinema, they're gonna they're gonna borrow and find inspiration in various genres and in different film cultures. So it makes sense that somebody realized, hey, we could tweak this a little bit and we can use this for more, you know, again, non magical even non science fiction suiting up sequences.
It would be truly hilarious if like the Batman suiting up montage goes directly back to sailor.
Moon with a with a camera spinning around and all the light. Yeah yeah, yeah, and to come back to Iron Man. I've probably hammered this one before, but I feel like the suiting up sequences and many of these superhero movies it's gotten it's gotten too magical, you know, like there's no physicality to the suit anymore. I liked it more when Iron Man had to have his own suit like put on or there's like robot arms putting
it on for him. But when it just became just a sea of nanites that just kind of a symbol on his body. It's like it's just so far removed from anything that I can touch and feel like, it just becomes this magical transformation sequence. He might as well be turning into Mamra they ever living. Yeah, I'm being picky here. I have to drive home that I just rewatched the Infinity Stone movies with my son and they were even better than I remember. So I love those films.
I really enjoy a number of the Iron Man films. I just wish I could feel the suit a little bit more in those sequences.
And to be fair, I've seen some of the Iron Man standalone movies, but I haven't seen those the big Avengers ones.
Oh no, they're good. They're there when you're ready for him. Okay, all right, This next one comes to us from Nathan. The subject RoboCop and crossbows. Nathan says, greetings and salutations, gentlemen. I wrote schall a while back with some comic connections concerning a ror shark and the question, Well, I've got I don't remember that one, but well I kind of remember that one. Okay, Well, I've got some more in
relation to RoboCop and its sequels. Both Robo Cops two and three were co written by Frank Miller, probably best known as the author of the industry changing comic The Dark Knight Returns, published in nineteen eighty six. When the highly anticipated animated feature was released in two parts in twenty thirteen, the aging Bruce Wayne slash Batman was portrayed
by none other than the great Peter Weller. Solid adaptation, perhaps more accessible than the atypical storytelling approach of the comic, definitely worth a view. That's interesting, you know, I've actually never read The Dark Knight Returns. Even when I was in my biggest comic book phases, I ended up going more in the Grant Morrison and Alan Moore direction, I think, than the than then checking these out. I don't know. It was a time too where I don't think there
was a great digital solution. So these comic books, they get expensive, and do you read them so quickly then you're out of comic book.
I actually have read that one. I'm not I'm famously on the show not up on my comics, Laura, So I haven't read a whole lot of especially like superhero comics. I've read, like, you know, some of the Alan Moore novels and stuff, but I have done this one. It was like in a batch that I did some number of years ago, and it's like, Okay, I'm going to read some of the big superhero comics that everybody says
are great. So I read Dark Knight Returns. I read I think Long Halloween, you know, some other stuff like that, and I don't remember a lot of detail about it, but I remember thinking most of those that I read were great.
This this is one that I remember I had as like an older cousin at the time when I was a kid, and he had the Dark Knight Returns. I remember him like showing me the cover and it was like, like, this is the real business right here. This is the serious comic book, you know, and you know this kid had nunchuck, so I just had to believe. Anyway. The email continues. Multiple on theme comics can be seen incidentally in RoboCop. Among them, an issue of the now world
renowned Iron Man RC. Three was directed by one Fred Decker, who's writing partner Shane Black, known for, among other things, their collaboration on the exquisite The Monster Squad also nineteen eighty seven, who would also go on to direct the Christmas Laiden critical hit iron Man three, also twenty thirteen. Yeah, I think I think we. We referenced Shane Black a little bit in the episode that came out Friday, but was not out at the time of this email.
About how he sets all his movies at Christmas, and a lot of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, and wait, iron Man three. I almost said RoboCop three, iron Man three was set at Christmas. That sounds right, I had I believe it was.
Yeah, I barely. I like that one. That one was fun.
I remember it was funny.
Yeah, Monsters Quad was also fun back in the day. I don't I'm not in a big hurry to revisit it because I think there's some things about it that are not going to age all that well. But still great looking monsters in that film.
Great cast tom noonan this as Frankenstein.
Yeah, all right. It continues in terms of sequel watchability, I think you both said that you'd not seen them. Well, I think we we haven't seen three, but we've both seen two a lot. I think, speaking as a longtime fan, I was eight or nine when RoboCop came out on VHS and I first saw it, I'd say number two for sure worth the watch. Agree tom noonan is the villain, carries the picture, and a lovely montage of failed attempts to create another cyborg is superb once more.
Agreed, grimly hilarious. Yes.
Part three, on the other hand, is a dud, difficult to sit through, but the excellent and unexpected cast makes it ideal for a background viewing. The same can be said of the cartoon Yes, another of those R rated film turned toy turned cartoon properties. It's not good, but the credits revealed names I recognize from legit good work later on the TV series A Snooze the remake Snooze, though I have to add that one has a great cast.
I haven't seen it. You may be wondering about RC comics, and I must regretfully report, despite at least some having been written by the often remarkable aforementioned Frank Miller, also a snooze. Unfortunately, I've found that to be the case to be true of basically all movie turn comics. I've read tons of Aliens, Predators, Terminators, etc. Hoping to recapture some of the delight the movies provide, but they never
really work. I'm fairly certain it's the lack of the iconic scores and sound effects that led to my disappointment.
Yeah, I recall at one point trying to pick up one of those I don't know, some kind of Aliens colonial marine, kind of comic, and it just did not click with me. I was getting in there. I was like that this does not have the magic of Aliens the film.
Yeah. I think I did an Alien Versus Predator novel at some point before they did the movie, so back when it was just like comics and novel franchise, and I remember enjoying it. But I also remember virtually nothing about the plot. But it was better than the movies that would come.
As to the RoboCop remake, don't want to spoil anybody's fun if they like it, because we did get an email from a frequent correspondent who I believe said that he enjoyed the remake, But I was not a big fan. I'm not a person who says as a rule that one should not try to remake an already great film. You know, you can remake a film that was good the first time and find a new angle on it find it a new interesting way to approach it. But this is one that did, in the end just feel
completely unnecessary. It's just like, why does this exist?
Now, Nathan goes on a little bit more about RoboCop. I'm gonna I'm gonna skip through some of this a little bit, but it's all good stuff. But I'm gonna get to the crossbows. Nathan says, Now, finally, if I could back up to the topic of crossbows, there's a subcategory I think deserves a mention, the wrist mounted crossbow. Notable examples of users in users in fiction include the Drow of the under Tark, Poison Ivy and Batman, and
a hunter in Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. Who's been a long time since I've seen that one.
I don't know it?
Oh, you know this is another one that when I was younger, there was a time when everyone was all about Vampire Hunter D. Anyway, Nathan closes up by saying, chances are you've already seen Bloodlust. In any event, I highly recommend it. It's full of great Castlevanian creatures, and
multiple recent Core episodes make me think of it. Crossbows obviously, but something you said in the shows on Shadows reminded me of a sneaky fiend who travels through two dimensional shadow, and while he isn't headless like the subject of those episodes, there is a neat take on lacanthropy where the Wolfman's entire torso opens up, revealing enormous jaws. I think I'll finish listening to your episode on RoboCop, finish rewatching RoboCop, and then rewatch Bloodlust.
Fun sounds great, Nathan.
Yeah, that sounds like some good viewing lined up there. Yeah, the idea of many crossbows. This is kind of like a side tangent I might have to come back to
in the future because there is this whole world. Like we touched on this a little bit talking about that very early ancient repeating crossbow that there's evidence of in China that may have just been a toy or like just an example of the basic principles of a design, but it probably didn't have much strength at all, and most of the firing power came from the string rather than the bow. And so you do get into interesting design problems when you scale a bow or crossbow down
too much. And yet you do find examples of fairly small ones that were used because there would be environments where you would still want a ranged weapon, but not have a tremendous amount of room to fire said ranged weapon. I forget this specif on it, but there was recently a samurai show at the High Museum here in Atlanta, Joe. I know you went to this as well, I said JJ.
And if memory serves there was a small bow or crossbow I don't remember which that was intended to be fired from a carriage or inside of a carriage, but probably inside a carriage firing outside. Should there be bandits or whatnot?
Hmmm, I don't recall that specifically though. There were a lot of amazing gizmos there.
Yeah, anyway, Nathan, Yeah, thanks for all the thoughts there, and all the film recommendations as well, Like you know, the Vampire Hunter d thing. I hadn't thought about that in a while, so I'll have to revisit it and see if maybe maybe I'll rewatch it as well.
All right, This next message comes to us from Daniel. It's in response to our series called The Sunken Lands,
about areas of land that have been covered up by water. Specifically, there's a part where we talked about the observation and areas around like the southeastern coast of Great Britain, of tree stumps down underneath the surf that would sometimes be revealed by like movements of sediment by heavy storms, and how this is evidence that actually forests used to go down into the space that is now filled in with
the North Sea. Daniel says, Hi, Robin Joe, I just listened with interest to your Sunken Lands episode one the other day as I actually had a genuine experience like this where I live. In the nineties, I lived just short walking distance from the beach the same village I grew up in grassy Head, Trial Bay, NSW, Australia. I guess that's New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia. In fact, you can hear the sea roaring from our property, being
only a few hundred meters from the beach. After some wild weather I went for a beach walk to see if any of the many shipwrecks were visible that uncover sometimes if the sand washes out of Trial Bay parentheses Trialbay named after a ship called the Trial stolen by convicts from Sydney and wrecked on my beach in eighteen sixteen. To my surprise, not only were their shipwrecks, but also a never before seen mudflat about a foot high and
tree stumps sticking out in the breakers. These stumps were from an ancient mangrove forest, and some were a good two feet wide. I did take photos, but if they aren't attached, it's because I didn't find them. Well, Daniel, there weren't any photos, so I guess you didn't find them, Daniel says. Over the next few weeks it all covered up again. So there was at one time a forest where the beach is now. It was a strange experience to walk among the tree stumps in the waves at
the beach. Thank you for your show. I've been listening for ages now, cheers Daniel.
Excellent. That's exactly the sort of in the field reporting where hoping to hear from our listeners.
Yeah. Love getting emails like this. Thank you, Daniel.
All right, let's get into the weird house cinema listener mail a little bit. This one comes to us from Lee. Lee says, greetings, Rob, Joe, and jj I hope you are all well. The recent episodes regarding headless Men had me wondering about disembodied heads. The search quickly sent me into horror and sci fi film best off lists. One of note was the Den of Geek website. The list
features notable movies and describes the scenes. They also include disembodied brains or one at least, since they mentioned Total Recall in The Thing nineteen eighty two, for specific scenes, I might further require the head or brain play a pivotal or at least interesting role in the plot. So others because I guess, yeah, I mean there are films where heads incidentally fly around without bodies. I guess yeah.
There's like the scene in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger is at the customs desk and he takes off a fake head that I don't know he was using to sneak into the planet disguised.
But that's it.
It's just like a fake talking robot head and then it explodes. It's not a major plot point.
Get ready for a surprise, yes, two weeks. And there are other films like you know, Big Trouble. Little China comes to mind is one that has a fabulous beholder like creature that's essentially a floating head, but it's not central to the plot. It's just really cool anyway. The email continues here. So others on the list include the
Brain from Planet Aros. That's nineteen fifty seven. We haven't watched it, but it has come up before, The Thing that Couldn't Die nineteen fifty eight, The Fiend without a Face nineteen fifty eight. Now, we did cover that one on Weird House, Yes we did.
That's about the I just sprayed for brains last week.
Tzardas from seventy four. That comes up from time to time. Not sure if that's one we'll cover, and and then they say, as well as a couple I would add on my own the Frozen Dead from nineteen sixty six, Invaders from Mars mentioned during the Maze episode, and looking into information on Modoc, I stumbled across the teenage mutant Ninja Turtle villain Kraying. Both of these could lend themselves to the monster fact treatment. Yeah. I'm a big Krang fan.
I like Modoc, So if there's anything to pull on there that's a little bit science y, I'll go for it. The Crossbow episodes brought to mind the DC comics hero vigilante Huntress. Not familiar with Huntress whose weapon is a crossbow pistol, as well as the Slee Stack from the seventies Saturday Morning Live action Showland of the Lost, who
had a crossbow weapon. While the slee Stack were one of the batties of that series, The role of Huntress sort of trends with that good, bad gray zone of Vigilanti. Would you consider Chewbacco's bow caster a crossbow type weapon? Keep up the great thought provoking content regards Lee.
Oh, where to start? A lot of things meant here. At first, I didn't realize what you were talking about with Invaders from Mars that came up in our episode on The Maze because it was directed I think the same year or just the year previous by the same director, William Cameron Mendsy's both came out in nineteen fifty three.
So The Maze was the movie where it's spoiler alert, spoiler alert, it takes place at the Scottish Castle and the twist at the end is that the I don't know little the prints of this castle is actually a giant frog monster. Very weird. But then Invaders from Mars is an early alien invasion movie that was very influential on a lot of filmmakers who grew up watching films of this kind like it was remade in the nineteen eighties.
But it is a strange mix of plot devices and little moments that are actually kind of that are actually pretty brutal and scary, and then other things that are just hilarious. There's so many general running around in jeeps and just stock footage of you know, trucks and military trucks and armored personnel transport driving around on military basis. It's like, Okay, yeah, I think we've seen enough of this.
Now get back to the alien ship. And on the alien ship there is like a there's like a disembodied head that I think has these wires coming out of it. It's like gold or something. It's weird looking.
As for the question about Chewbacco's bow caster we talked about in the previous Listener Mail episode, I can't remember exactly where we landed there. Sort of a crossbow but also sort of not a crossbow. I think that's a fair way to put it.
I'd say, actually, it is not only sort of a crossbow, it's fully a crossbow because it does shoot physical bolts or not just substantial massive bolts like Remember it's not just plasma. There's metal stuff coming out of Chewy's crossbow.
That's right, it's a bolt that has like a plasma coating. So that's what's crashing into your storm Trooper armor.
Bam.
Oh wait there's more. I forgot. There's a PSPs Joe. For the record, I really didn't need an excuse to rewatch the Gargoyles movie. It was a fun, nostalgic watch.
That's the made for TV movie about gargoyles that live in a cave under the desert, which I have not watched, by the way, but I don't know. It came up for some reason. I think maybe because it was early effects worked by Stan Winston, and it had some interesting cast members who was in it, like Bernie Casey's in Bernie Casey and like Scott Glenn or somebody.
Yep, Scott Glenn. Yeah. I mean it's got a god of there are a number of things interesting about it. So I saw it long ago, like on a lazy Sunday afternoon on A and E. I think, so, yeah, it'd be worth coming back to it. Looks like Scott Scott Glenn's really young in this, younger than you would ever guess Scott Glenn ever was okay?
Should we call it there?
All right? Yeah, let's go ahead and close the book on this episode of Listener Mail. But there will be more in the future, you know, the dri core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener Mail. Wednesdays we usually do in an artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.