Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema we're going to be talking about the nineteen eighty nine Aliens ripoff Shocking Dark, which has got to be a new favorite for me. I've never seen this before and it is top tier schlock. This movie is it was such a good time.
That's right, I mean, this is bad movie. Caviat from the screenwriters behind Troll two and the director of such films as Zombie three and Robo War's Shop Door singular rob ro wor singular my mistake. Yes, Robo War. There was only ever one Robo War, but.
They didn't yet have James Cameron to come along and write Robo War with a dollar sign after it.
Yeah, this this one. I have to say, this is a film that I actually absolutely has to be seen to be believed. We we don't talk about bad movies so much on Weird House. Were generally, you know, very I would say, we're pretty forgiving. We're we're here to to lean into films and find find what works and
celebrate what works in a movie. So it may have been a while since we watched something this schlocky this, but in its own way, this this perfect because I think, you know, one would be tempted to cast a film like Shocking Dark as the mere antithesis of great filmmaking. But I think you could also argue that this is the reflected reverse image, and as such it's that same greatness.
It's just reversed, you know, it's Shocking Dark. Is is stupendous, and as such, I would argue it's more captivating than most motion pictures. There's no lukewarm movie here to be spat out and forgotten half finished. The experience no matter what, is going to be absolutely memorable.
I totally agree with that this is not a middle of the road, boring hack exercise. This is a jewel of badness. It's the kind of badness that takes on a form of genius, like other films of this caliber we've talked about before, like troll To like Plan nine from Outer Space, like Highlander two. In many ways, yeah, I think it's right up there. This movie is so pleasurable, and I think there will be a bunch of reasons
that we can get into. Some are harder to describe than others, but we'll try to sort of lay out a roadmap of the pleasures on offer here. But first, since this movie is widely acknowledged to be a shameless ripoff of at least one James Cameron movie, actually two two James Cameron movie, I thought we should try to place it within a kind of taxonomy of different ways a movie can be thought of as a copycat or a ripoff. All right, So, the first way I want to think of a movie being a knockoff is the
marketing clone. And in this case, the actual substance of the movie may have nothing to do with the film that's being copied, but the market facing information about the film, such as title, poster, or trailer, tries to make the movie seem related to or identical to another more successful movie. And there are actually a few different ways you can do this. One example is sequels in name only. An instance here is Troll two, which is connected to the
very same creators of Shocking Dark. Troll two had nothing to do with the.
Movie called Troll.
Movies like this are in neither form nor function actual sequels to the original. They just illicitly slap a title and they're like Zombie two or Terminator two. In this case, they put it on the poster without permission and they opened the box office.
Yeah, and so like with this film. This film was apparently shot as shocking dark, and it was a producer level choice to then try and sell it as Terminator too. So I think if everyone involved in making the film realize like that was, that was maybe even a step step too far. You're not just not It's one thing to call your film troll too, but to go after to go in the wake of Terminators. They're like, hey, here it is Terminator too. I know there's another Terminator
two coming out in a few months. I'm not going to say anything about that one, but why don't you buy this?
Yeah. Another way you can have a marketing clone is mockbusters movies that you know, as far as I can tell, are trying to confuse people into buying the wrong DVD. These were very popular in the late two thousands and the twenty ten. So imagine a movie called Transmorphers with DVD box art that looks very similar to Michael Bay's Transformers. You can think of other examples like Atlantic Rim and
The Da Vinci Treasure. These movies may or may not be similar to the target blockbuster in terms of plot, character, or style. The point is that they can be hard to tell apart before you watch them. They're hard to tell apart like at the store, especially maybe to like a grandparent buying a DC for their grandchild or something. Yeah, so that's a kind of crass way you can approach trying to steal the artistic or entertainment credibility of another film.
Another way you can have something that could be thought of as a knockoff is the premise lifter. A lot of copycat movies are like this, and I think it's one of the most benign forms of copying in storytelling. In this type of movie, you take the basic premise or elevator pitch of a pre existing movie, but then
you take it in your own direction. So, for example, a premise clone of the original Terminator might be a movie about a killer robot that is transported from a dystopian future back to the present to carry out a mission. So you could have the same setup as the Terminator, or at least the same setup as far as you know, as far as it would sound in a sentence long pitch. But then maybe the plot and the characters and execution could be totally different, And there are even some quite
good movies in this category. I think a fresh take on a familiar premise can be exciting and sometimes can even be great art. Lots of examples of this category don't even feel like copying. They might just be variations on a theme or further exploring a new niche subgenre in the example of Terminator. At this point, does Dangerous Robot from the Future even really belong to James Cameron? Or is that more just kind of a very specific subgenre of sci fi?
Yeah?
Yeah, Now, another way a movie might be thought of as a copycat is what I would call the vibe repeater. A lot of Star Wars copycats are in this category. They don't exactly lift all that much directly from Star Wars in terms of semantic plot content, but instead they're trying to copy like the texture and the feeling of Star Wars. So it's more the world, the ensemble, the
look and sound, the emotional range, and so forth. So in the case of Star Wars vibe repeaters, you'd usually get some kind of swashbuckling space adventure with a cast of zany characters and morphologically diverse aliens, droids, bad guys in scary helmets, rebels fighting against the odds, space battles, mysticism,
and things like that. So these movies try to copy the texture and the feeling of another movie that's been successful, more so than explicit details of the story or or explicit designs or anything like that.
Yeah, and a lot of the times, a lot of the time it falls flat. To be honest, I guess it depends on what you're copying. Like I would say, in general, I've never seen a Star Wars vibe repeater that gets the job done. But if I were to look at, say, the various Conan the Barbarian inspired movies, Okay, certainly none of them are on the level of Conan in terms of cinematic quality, but like, the general vibe might be there. It's like, all right, you know, muscle Barbarians,
and some of the similar themes might be explored. It can work kind of like some of your better Mad Macs. Vibe repeaters can essentially get the job done.
I agree, Yeah, yeah, okay, And then the final category I would talk about is just the all out ripoff, and this is the territory we're in with Shocking Dark. Shocking Dark is indeed a marketing clone of Terminator. Specifically, it is a sequel in name only that uses a poster that looks exactly like the poster for Terminator. It is both a premise lifter and a vibe repeater of Aliens. It's taking the basic plot pitch, and it's also trying to copy a lot of the texture and feeling of Aliens.
But it goes beyond any of these categories into outright reproducing whole characters, situations, and scenes from Aliens, but with a much lower budget and less finesse in terms of acting, writing, sets, costumes, and effects. And so it's actually a pretty interesting question to me, why would you want to do that? I can understand. I think all of the other categories, like I understand the mercenary money making appeal of the marketing
clone that is a cash grab. I understand the creative appeal of taking a crack at a story premise that has been done before, but doing it your own way. It can be fun to work out your own unique version of an idea. I understand wanting to capture the vibes of a movie that you liked in the past, but just do something different with it, you know, so
create a similar feeling that you have enjoyed yourself. But I don't quite understand what is the appeal of just taking the scene from Aliens where Burke leaves the face hugger in the room with Ripley and Newt and reproducing it essentially the same but less well within another movie. That is a head scratcher for me.
Yeah, I mean, my only guess is that it basically comes down to like a producer level understanding or misunderstanding of what cinema is, you know, where it's just about the cash grab. It's not about what emotions the movie can summon. It's not about the stories they can tell. It's just like, what how much money can we make tomorrow using the limited resources we have today?
But I don't even understand, So, like, what kind of appeal do you think you're gonna sell more movie tickets if you have a scene in your movie it's the same as a scene from the other movie that made money, do you know what I mean? Like, I don't even know how that you think that translates into getting people into the theaters or getting people to rent it.
Yeah, I mean, I can only assume it was just kind of a product of the time, right it. It must have worked right because they did it all the time in like B and C budget Italian cinema.
Yeah, I guess so. But by the way, I don't mean to say any of this to detegrate the experience of Shocking Dark, because despite what you might regard as its creative failures or crimes, it is an absolutely brain melting good time. I can't recommend this movie enough to people who like schlock movies.
Absolutely, this is definitely so bad it's good territory. I couldn't. I couldn't get my wife to watch it. She was like, she kind of scratched her head with why I would watch this in full. But if you, if you enjoy bad, schlocking movies, movies that are very rough around the edge, is then Shocking Dark is the film for you.
It feels like a movie built entirely out of first takes. There are parts where actors literally screw up their lines and then correct themselves, or they like miss a queue and leave a long, awkward pause before responding to someone and just leave it in. That's in the movie.
Yeah, we'll get into some specific examples of this too, where it's just kind of like the camera's rolling, we're gonna get what we're gonna get, and yeah, it's in the movie.
Yeah, I love it. And then there are otherwise where it's just hard to describe what is so funny and pleasing about it. You just have to see it for yourself. It's a lot of little details about timing, editing, framing, line delivery that are difficult to translate into words, but you should see this once again. It is top shelf shlock.
All right, I have a quick elevator pitch, and I think you have a longer one, but mine is simply, we have aliens at home. This movie is aliens at home.
Yes, it's like what if aliens, but instead out of a terraforming colony on LV four twenty six, it's tunnels allegedly underneath Venice. Does that even make sense to have tunnels underneath Venice? Sounds like a flooding risk? But okay, so it's tunnels underneath Venice, the city of Venice in Italy. And then instead of colonial marines, you've got the Mega Force. More on them later, and then instead of xenomorphs, you've
got bug eyed Ooze hippos. And then instead of Whale and U Tanni, you have the Tubular Corporation, And instead of James Cameron, you have the guys who made Troll.
Too and Robo War. All right, let's go ahead and just listen to a little bit of the trailer audio for Shocking Dark.
They thought they were fighting only against aliens. They were sure that they had won their but they were mistaken. Shocking Dark.
Full ferocious, indestructible, ruthless terminator.
Shocking Dark.
Hey there, this is Joe with an insert from the future. After we finished recording the episode, just thought back about how Shocking Dark has a pretty unbelievable plot twist in the last fifteen minutes or so, and we end up talking about it without much warning in the episode. So if you want to see the movie without having a pretty bizarre surprise spoiled for you, you should watch it before listening further.
That's all all right, So at this point in the podcast, you might be wondering, all right, how can I see Shocking Dark? Then, well, Shocking Dark did not receive a proper release in the US for a very long time, I think for some obvious reasons. But in twenty eighteen, the excellent Severin Films put out the definitive Blu ray edition, scanned in two K from the director's cut negative discovered in a Rome Lab vault. Plus there are some There are a couple of fun extras on the disc that
I'll reference later. You can buy this in most places, but you can also get it off their website. Severin dot com. They do great releases in general. Shocking Dark is probably a film where you can get by seeing it in a grungy format, but I still think it's worth seeing in the best quality available. I know that some of the streams you'll find out there are on the official services that offer them. These are also the seven restoration, or at least you know the restoration that
Severn Films used in their release. Okay, this is what I watched. I rented it from Video Drum here in Atlanta.
I am soon to own a disc of this, but I watched a stream of it that was available through I think scream box and it looked good.
Yeah, I bet it's the same restoration, because it is worth stressing that it's a film with some things that I think are worth seeing in high detail. The locations they used and the I think one set that they utilized late in the film. I think these are great. I enjoyed seeing them, these performances, you know, respect the actors involved here and see them in the highest format possible. All right, let's talk about the people who made it.
The director's chair occupied by Bruno matte who of nineteen thirty one through two thousand and seven Italian director of B movies, exploitation films, and yes, shameless knockoffs. His story is pretty endearing in a number of ways. Though his father owned a film editing studio, so he grew up in and around the business, and he has various technical credits to go all the way back to the Night to the early fifties. In sixty nine and seventy, he worked as an editor on two Jess Franco films, ninety
nine Women and Count Dracula. That's the one that had Christopher Lee in it with a mustache, and he apparently did some uncredited directing on ninety nine Women. After this, he directed a string of Italian sex comedies and exploitation films leading up to nineteen eighties Hell of the Living Dead, a Dawn of the Dead inspired zombie film featuring a score by Goblin. Oh wow. Yeah, Now, don't be mistaken. All of the exploitation projects continued in the background here.
But he also followed this up with eighty three's The Seven Magnificent Gladiators, which starred Luferi No and Sybil Danning who guess we're also in a Hercules movie that we watched, and Brad Harris so I think was also in that Hercules movie.
Wait, they're trying to get some Magnificent seven juice into the title of this gladiator. Is this a future gladiator's movie?
Ooh, that's a great question. I would say given the timeframe, there's like a seventy five percent chance that it takes place in a post apocalyptic future. But I don't know. This could be This could be a Sword and Sandals picture. I mean, he does have Luf Rigno in it, so come the Hercules connection.
He could be a Roman gladiator or he could be a cyber gladiator. Both maver sense.
There's also eighty four's Rats Night of Terror that is a post apocalyptic film with like rats overrunning a post apocalyptic city, and I think they used decaying sets from more exterior sets from a Once upon a Time in America for that one. And then there's eighty seven's Double Target. This had Miles O'Keefe in it, and Donald Pleasants is Miles O'Keefe, the guy from Atour Yes Okay. Eighty seven
Scalps and Strike Commando was starring Reb Brown. Eighty eight Zombie three, the nineteen eighty eight Predator ripoff Robo War starring Reb Brown.
Oh, that's one of my favorites. I used to put Robo War on when I was like hanging out with my D and D friends. I'd put it on on mute because something often silly looking was happening on screen. But if you watch that one, I don't know if that's fun to sit through the entire time because it gets rather monotonous. There's just a lot of like running around in the jungle and stuff, but there are some quite funny dialogue moments in it.
The alien does not look as good as the predator in our Predator franchise. I have to.
Say, no, it does not. I would say that the monster costumes in shocking Dark are much better than the monster monster suits and designs in the other Bruno Matte and Claudio Fragoso movies I've seen.
I agreed, agreed, We'll come back to those monsters in a bit. But let's say following Robo War, there's eighty eight Strike Commando two, which has Richard Harrison, and then there's the nineteen ninety five Jaws knockoff, cruel Jaws and much more.
No nice jaws around here.
Yeah, I guess by ninety five you got to come up with new angles on your Jaws knockoff. Anyway, what your angle is that the shark is mean? Yeah, yeah, he wouldn't mean enough. Further, it's just an animal now he's mean. Okay. So Mittea continued working in low budget horror until his death in two thousand and seven, and I've read that he was, you know, working pretty much extensively in the Philippines by that time.
I think Robo War was shot in the Philippines.
From what it is, a jungle movie, right, yeah, all right, Now onto the screenwriters. It is the husband and wife duo of Rosella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso. He was born in fifty one they also wrote nineteen nineties, often exceeded but never equaled Troll two, which was our second selection ever for Weird House Cinema.
A classic for a reason.
For Grosso's credited screenplays go back to around seventy four and hers to nineteen eighty, but they frequently worked with Bruno on such films as Hell as a Living Dead, Rats, Night of Terror, Zombie three Strike, Commando two, and Robo War. Now, of their pictures, I've mainly just seen Troll two and The Night Killer, as well as some behind the scenes interviews with them, and it's always very interesting and it always strikes me that they take their films very seriously.
So Troll two had aspirations of being a sort of cutting critique of vegetarianism got them, and Night Killer aspired to be some sort of like serious psycho sexual thriller.
In some respects Night Killer is very funny but also gross.
Yeah. Yeah, I can't. I can't recommend. I can't recommend Night Killer to the average film viewer. It's more of it's a deeper cut. Yeah, But I was curious, Okay, there's going to be an interview on this disc from Severn, and I was like, what's their takeing it beyond it? Are they going to be you know, very serious about it or are they going to be upfront about it being a knockoff. It's more of the latter. They stressed, the producers put a put some very strict parameters on
this project. It needed to be a combination of Aliens and The Terminator, and it needed to use character names from those films. So, yeah, have a Sarah, for instance, in this picture.
Except she's the Ripley, right, yeah, yeah, so the Sarah Connor is the Ripley. And then there's a Drake in it. Drake is one of the colonial Marines in Aliens, but instead they make him like a scientist who has been driven insane by the monsters and like has a scream from beyond space and time.
Yeah, And they said that they actually pushed back as much as they could, trying to inject some originality into the script, but that neither they nor Bruno had any control over the switch to the title Terminator too, when the producer turned around and tried to sell it.
Okay, I think maybe the direct copying of scenes from Aliens makes more sense if like these are just hired guns and they are doing what the producers tell them they have to do. Yeah, that makes sense. It's like an order that is executed unthinkingly, or maybe not unthinkingly by the people executing it, but is given unthinkingly.
Right, But then part of the creative exercise here becomes Okay, it's one thing to say, rip off aliens and terminator, but then how do you do it with such a limited budget. You can't, So you have to make up new stuff, even if you didn't want to, even if you want to just save all of your creative juices for the next project that you have more investment in, You're gonna have to come up with something because you cannot. You cannot reproduce alien scene for scene, like you just can't not do it.
Absolutely not, though I've sort of already alluded to this, But I think that the normally, when you're dealing with the small budget, what you would expect to be the weakest link in the movie is the technical realization, like the you know, the special effects and the monster costumes in the sets. But I don't think that is the weakest link here. I think that you know, some of the monster costumes kind of look okay, they're kind of they're they're not as scary and realistic looking as the
xenomorph costumes, but they're fun, they're they're pretty good. I mean, clearly, the weakest link here is like the script and the acting and the human elements.
I agree Frigaso thought that the monster costumes were the worst part. You know, he's like some of the atmosphere they created, But yeah, I thought the monsters were fine.
There are other glaring problems here. Drudi, for her part, said that she didn't like the film, was slightly mystified that people did like it, but was generally like glad that the film made people happy, and she commented that there was too much dialogue pas in the film, like they just they had to, they had to fill up a certain amount of runtime, and you know, you can't just do effects and shotgun blasts the whole time. You've got to have some dialogue, and that there's too much of it.
That's some of my favorite stuff in the movie, when it feels like the actors are just ad libbing to stretch out a scene. And yeah, oh that's some of the best stuff, especially costers stuff in that regard.
Oh goodness, yes, I guess we'll get to hurt in a minute. So anyway, the writers here, they seem to have no illusions about the film and they're glad people liked it and they didn't disown it or anything, you know, So it was it's a fun little interview, all right. Now, let's get into the cast here. I'm going to start with really our central protagonist here, our ripley, if you will. It is the character Sarah, and she is played by Haven Tyler. You know she is.
I don't think anybody could say she is a good actress in this movie, but she is like a blee bad Like I found her bad performance was endearing.
This is Tyler's only acting credit. She was an American college student studying abroad at the time, and since she'd done a little bit of modeling and she had in the past done some like school stage performances, she signed up with a talent agency in Rome, which led to her casting in this production. According to a twenty twenty one interview with Fangoria magazine, this one was conducted by Michael Gengold. Her audition was apparently just her screaming in
a room, and it's a really good interview. I've certainly worth worth checking out for anyone interested in this picture. But she reflects positively on the experience of making it, saying that like most everyone was nice. The guy who oversaw the munitions was really professional, which is something I have to admit is often on my mind these days. When I watched these older films with a bunch of guns in them, I'm like, geez, I hope nobody was
hurt or killed making this. I hope they were. They were careful, so it's alway refreshing to hear something like that. I showed my wife part of the movie and she observed that Tyler bears a certain resemblance to contemporary actress Kate McKinnon.
Yep, she looks like her.
Yes, And of course the whole idea was I think she was calfs because she at least vaguely to some degree, resembles Ripley. It looks like Sigourney Weaver. I don't know sure why not.
I'm trying to get there, but I don't quite see it. But I respect that they tried, and you know what, I feel like my judgment is going to continue because now that I'm looking down the list of the other actors we have to talk about in almost every case, I actually feel have the same judgment, which is likably bad, not a good actor giving a very stiff, wooden performance. But I like them a lot.
Yeah, I mean really, you know, someone like Tyler, this is her only film, She've had very little experience. This is a very green performance, but it's great, like she gives it her all. It is perfect for this film totally.
And another person on that wavelength is the actor who plays Fuller, the company Man.
Yes, Christopher Aarn's another American actor living in Italy at the time. We haven't I don't think we've mentioned this, but this is an Italian film, but all the dialogue is in English. It was like shot in English, so using a lot of American actors or Americans in general that happened to be in Italy at the time. So this guy's acting credits, though stretched from nineteen eighty five
through around nineteen ninety nine. They include eighty eight Raiders of the Magic Ivory, the nineteen ninety one Top Gun knockoff with Aliens and David Warner, Blue Tornado, nineteen ninety one's Beyond Justice with Rudger Howard, and Elliott Gould, and finally a bit part as a Goths soldier in the nineteen ninety nine all star Julie Taymoor film Titus, produced in part by Steve Bannett.
Yeah, that's come up before. I don't remember him from Titus, though.
I think it's a bit part, you know, Goth soldier or God's Soldier number one or some thing you know.
Okay, So my read on this guy is that they told him you are the bad guy, be mean, and so in every single moment, every single line, every single second that the camera is on him, he is sneering.
Yeah, he's just like.
It is one of the most over the top villain performances I've ever seen. Dot. I don't think he ever cracks a smile.
He is just like, yeah, he's like every scene he's making that. You know, sometimes you see people who's like their idea for a headshot is they need to look mean in all of them. They need to look like like very stern and not smile. That's his whole, the whole picture.
Yes, Yeah, that's off to him.
Yeah, it's a he commits the part. It's fine, all right. Now getting into the basically the colonial Marines the picture we have the character cost and cost is played by Garretta Garretta born nineteen fifty eight.
I love her. I can't literally like the moment when she died in the movie, like halfway through I shouted out loud. I was like, no, do not take her away.
How can we finish the picture without her just jarring presence. So she is an American model turned actor with a number of notable credits from the world of Italian b cinema, making her something of an icon in this part of the world of cinema. Her credits include nineteen eighty three's Warrior of the Lost World and eighty three's twenty twenty Texas Gladiators, Fulci's Murder Rock from nineteen eighty four, that one not that good, but not only for Fulci, completist,
I think, but she's in that one. She's in Bruno's Rats Night of Terror, and in nineteen eighty five she appeared in Lamberto Baba's Classic Demons, which is definitely worth seeing if you're into just wild Italian horror movies of this time period is Warrior of.
The Lost World, the one they did on Mystery Science Theater that has mega Weapon.
Yes, I believe so. I think that's the one with Donald Pleasants in it, right.
That sounds right. Mega weapon from what I recall is like a dump truck that's got a little like thing pooping out some flames from it, and.
Yep, yep, that's the one. Fred Williamson's in it.
Yeah. But to repeat the theme of actors who are giving it, they're all who are giving a I don't know, you you might not think of as a realistic dramatic performance, but who are going over the top in ways that make this movie so much fun Bullseye Like Greta. Greta is so much fun in this Yeah.
She has this kind of like unhinged green energy that makes her just absolutely captivating to watch. Like we'll get into the key scene here in a bit, but yeah, anytime she is on on on screen, you're like, what is she going to say next? What is she gonna do? And what choices is she gonna make in her acting?
Yeah?
All right. We also have Foster Lombardi playing Frienzini, another one of the Mega Force crew here the Marines Here born nineteen fifty five, Italian actor. His credits include nineteen eighty's Terror Express eighty two is Don't Look in the attic Rat's Night of Terror nineteen eighty nine's After Death aka zombiefore. That one was directed by Claudio Fragasso and written by Rosella Drudi, and he was also in Blue Tornado.
Is this the guy who cost her yells at for being Italian?
Yes? Yeah, okay, all right. It can't be an alien's ripoff without a newt ripoff, and that is where the character Samantha comes into play. Samantha was played by child actress Dominica Colson, who was apparently eleven at the time,
but looks quite a bit older on the screen. Judian Fragasso points this out that she's almost as tall as tap Tyler and these various scenes, and I don't think everyone was really happy with the way this ended up looking, but hey, being being a parent of a twelve year old and seeing how his friends have grown, especially, I can totally see how this could happen. You cast an eleven year old and suddenly she's like a foot and a half taller.
Oh yeah, I guess it takes a while to make a movie, didn't it. Yeah, yeah, I would have maybe not this one.
But I'm maybe between the time of casting at or maybe you don't realize that your lead actor isn't as tall as Sigourney Weaver. I don't know.
Yeah, that would make sense. I would have guessed this actress was older than eleven. Yeah.
Yeah, But anyway, in that interview with Angoria, Tyler shares that she and her mom, who was on set with her the whole time, were lovely people. So it's always nice to hear when a low budget picture like this is not in and of itself a secondary horror movie. Yeah. Yeah, because you can imagine the pitch was. I was a college student living in Italy for a summer, and I was cast in a sci fi horror movie filmed in an abandoned nuclear power plant.
Oh my god, that is where they filmed some of the stuff, isn't it.
Yeah. Yeah, we'll get into like, you have so many great sequences, and well, there are great sequences. You have some great locations in this film, Yes, that look very interesting that could have this industrial quality to them, but also don't look like straight up grimy ruins, like they're kind of they're very clean and futuristic looking in some regards, and That's basically what the whole situation is.
When I was watching, I was really wondering where some of this was shot, because it doesn't look like cheap sets. It looks like a real industrial setting with like heavy bulkhead doors and all this stuff, Like, what were they doing here? But they actually got let into a nuclear power plant.
Yeah. Italy, I believe, historically had four different nuclear power plants, all of which close by nineteen ninety following the nineteen eighty seven Italian referendums on nuclear power. And this would have been in the wake the Chernobyl disaster. So yeah, they shot stuff there. They also shot some in Rome's Roma Tormini train station. I think there are some grimier tunnel sequences that must have been shot there. And then there's one set late in the picture. There's one like
fully created set. Basically it'll be a set that looks a lot like maybe they were inspired by the Mother command center in the original Alien.
That's what I was thinking was the one. Yeah, should we spoil it right now? It's a time machine.
Yeah, this movie has the gall to throw in the what are like last ten to fifteen minutes of the film, they're like, oh, time travel exists. Yeah, yeah, in a big way.
Best CODEA ever.
All right, let's see who do we have left on here? Okay, there's a character named Drake who shows up. We mentioned Drake earlier, played by Clive Ricci born nineteen fifty eight. This is another This is a much much smaller role, but another totally unhinged performance that land somewhere between bad and transcendent.
I could not believe what I was watching in the scene where he starts screaming at all of the Mega Force guys and they all start screaming, and everyone's screaming, It's like I nearly fell over.
It's a lot of screaming in this film, a lot of shrill screaming. So this is This is an English born actor born fifty eight, also a composer. This was his first film credit, which I think is understandable, but he went on to a peer in ninety four Cemetary Man, two thousand and five's Casanova, the two thousand and seven HBO series Rome, Dario Argento's Mother of Tears in two thousand and seven, in the twenty twenty four series Those About to Die, along with various other I think Italian
productions and productions that took place in Italy. I believe he's also a translator and a voiceover artist.
M okay, well, hey, should we talk about those creature effects that Claudio was talking down on.
Yes, this is the work of the Polucci brothers. So these are a pair of twin Italian monster suit makers, Francesco and Gaetano, active behind the scenes, or at least credited as such, because sometimes, you know, special effects people are kind of lost in the shuffle and aren't actually credited. But based on the databases, we know that they were
active between eighty five and ninety six. They'd previously worked on nineteen eighty five's texts and The Lord of the Deep on some special effects, and then they followed this up working alongside the legendary Italian special effects master Carlo Rombaldi on nineteen eighty five Silver Bullet. This is the Stephen King scripted adaptation of King's Werewolf story.
Does that Gary Busey in it?
It sure does?
Yeah?
Okay? And also what's his name that played Stilgar in the David Lynch Dune.
Oh Everett McGill, there you.
Go, Yeah, Everett McGill's and that too, So anyway, this seemed to be like this. I'm guessing this was their big moment, like working with a legit master of like creature effects and creature building, and after this they seem to go their own way. Their creature work continues in Body Count in eighty six, The Barbarians in eighty seven, Top Line and Robo War in eighty eight, and Night Killer in nineteen ninety, and then their last picture came
out in ninety six. But again, sometimes special effects workers don't end up being credited properly, so I'm not entirely sure where else they may have worked. Well.
I think the monsters in Shocking Dark look a lot better than the monster in Robo War.
Yeah, they look good. I feel like they're mostly lit pretty well. They clearly just had two suits, one of which looks kind of like a fishy frogman and the other one looks kind of like a cross between the alien space jockey and a giant cicada.
That's what I was thinking. One is the cicada because it's got a oh, it's got kind of a hose running down the middle of its face that is space jockey ish, but could also be interpreted as the insects rostrum, and it has the red eyes of a cicada. It just looks very insecty. But then the other one is the one I was thinking of, is the bubblegum hippopotamus, because it's kind of a hippo. Then when it opens its mouth, it's got this stretchy, the bubblegum kind of
the sticky stuff in between its jaws. That that's always like peeling up and I don't know what you call that, that physical effect, but it's like bubble gum stuck between two things that are peeling apart.
It's always painfully obvious that they only had two monster suits in this film, like they're not really able to create that illusion of there being tons and tons of monsters. I always felt like there was Monster A and Monster B. But still they look pretty good.
Though there are some surprise monsters later on of a different format.
Oh yes, there is going to be a yeah, spoiler monster coming later. I guess not much of a spoiler monster, all right. And then finally, the music in this picture. The score is by Carlo Maria Cordillo born nineteen fifty two, composer and one time producer on Joe Diamato's ninety one fantasy film Quest for the Mighty Sword. He worked a lot in European exploitation and genre s. His credits include the nineteen eighty one Joe Diamanto George Eastman Gorefest Absurd.
He did one Picer Simon's eighty two slasher pieces, along with Joe Diamanto's A Tour The Fighting Eagle, and his eight nineteen eighty three post apocalyptic film Endgame Bronx Lota Finale eighty seven, z Iron Warrior, Fulchi's Enigma the same year,
Night Killer, Troll two, and various other schlocky titles. His work typifies that kind of like fun and atmospheric synth work you find in a lot of these films, which, along with, you know, the work of bigger name players in the game, helped inspire whole modern subgenres of like hard disco and you know, sort of like retro dark synth wave stuff. Yeah.
The soundtrack here is not super original, but I think it fits well and is quite fun.
Yeah. Yeah. You can find some of these tracks on Cordeo's official streamable releases under the title Alienator, which was one of the alternate titles for the film if you look for the album The Bite of Fear, So yeah, I thought it sounded pretty good. Special edition vinyls of his scores have been released before, I don't think for Shocking Dark, but Patrol Too and Absurd definitely have come
out on vinyl. And finally, I should note that IMDb lists the use of stock music on this film by none other than legendary Greek progressive and electronic composer Evangelists who live forty three through twenty and twenty two. But I'm not sure what where and to what extent we hear evangelists in Shocking Dark. But I know he did a lot of major compositions obviously, you know Oscar winning stuff like eighty one's Chariots a Fire or you know
the legendary score to eighty two's Blade Runner. But he also did stuff like a twelve hour private score for some surgery instruction videos that the Tacos tapes. So I don't know. I'm not a vangelist expert, so I'm not sure like what all he got into outside of like his main work. So maybe there is some like you know, straight up you know stock music that he did that
they're sampling here. But but again I'm not sure. I'm not sure on the details of where we hear any of his work in his picture Let Me Let Me Stress though, score by Cordillo not a score by Evangelists.
Evangelists directed shocking everybody remember that. Okay, is it time to talk about the plot?
Yeah, let's get into the plot now.
I think once we sort of hit a certain point in the progression of the story here, the plot recap may become thinner or more cursory than usual, since it just did not make sense to me to like after Act two begins, to try to narrate in detail. This is one of those movies where when I started playing the stream, I had to stop and make sure I had selected the right title, because if you know that the premise is it's a ripoff of Aliens and Terminator, the first scene does not make any sense. We open
on tourists in Venice. Yes, so we're in some piazza with cathedrals in the background. You see tourists wandering around with cameras taking pictures of stuff. They're pigeons everywhere. Somebody strikes up some soft Italian mandolin music, and then a voice over comes on sounding like the narrator of a slasher movie trailer, and says Venice before the year two thousand and it goes on to say squares, museums and churches, Tourists crowd the streets. Venice is threatened by the high tide.
The seaweed is killing the oxygen in the waters, and the putrid waters are corroding the foundations of the city. So we're treated to some shots of Venus from the water, from out on the ocean, looking at the at the coastline and the buildings, and then the narrator says, this is Venus today, and then it grows softer and it says what will happen tomorrow? We cut away from the waters and the pleasure boats to a shot of the city with soft, fuzzy lens. Now it looked very clear beforehand.
Now we got the fuzzy lens. So the camera operator has activated conquest mode. I don't know how exactly they do that. I mean they smear some vasoline on the lens or something, but we're in that mode, and in front of the city there is now a red sign that says Venus off limits. And here we get our first glimpse of the Mega Force. Now, these costumes are I don't know, they're a big part of what makes
the movie funny because they're just funny looking costumes. From the bottom to the top, the Mega Force wear heavy boots, baggy cuffed up nylon pants, a Batman utility belt, golden yellow longsleeve shirts, and then I don't know what you call these this like shoulder formation or sleeve type, but they're like a V shaped gray vest with sort of arched cap sleeves. You know, it's like where the sleeve comes out from the shoulder over the arm.
Yeah, it looks kind of like the things that the Ninjas wear in Mortal Combat.
Yes, yeah, yeah, and then a gas mask and a bicycle helmet.
Yeah yeah. So basically so, yeah, Venus is off limits. Now. Future Venus is kind of like New York City and Escape from New York, only it's a biohazard zone instead of a penal colony. Will learn.
Yeah, not even any prisoners in there. There is no Duke of Venice. There is only slime, which, by the way they show us, we're just getting at this point. They're showing us pictures of the water and they're slime in the water, and then another narrator comes on. I think this is a different voice who says the situation in Venice is now critical. A giant toxic cloud has settled over the city and is slowly destroying every form
of life. The government has declared it a disaster area and has ordered the evacuation of the few remaining survivors. Venice is now a dead city. And then like the camera pans around looking at the canals, filming places where there's like a lot of algae on the bricks around the canal, or just some litter, and it kind of reminds me of something we talked about in our Weird
House episode on Frogs from nineteen seventy two. When you've got a movie scene, it's supposed to be showing that a place is filled with litter and pollution, but the trash and the scene looks too fresh. They do not have that problem here, because I think they're just I think they got these shots by just going around in filming places where there was actually trash piled up.
Yeah, they just like picked out the worst spots in Venice and like, here's your dystopian future.
Right, so it doesn't actually look that futuristic just looks like they were cruising for trash and they found some and you know, got some shots. So we go around looking at these fuzzy scenes of a desolate, abandoned Venus. There's like crumbling. There are crumbling buildings hanging over the canals, old wooden scaffolding, and various stages of rot bricks falling into the ocean. Rats living in old water logged mattresses.
The idea is Venus stinks. Now, it's no good. Next we go inside a secure facility to a control room of some kind with huge banks of lights and monitors and dials all beeping, and in here we meet some Megaphorce guys. And as soon as I saw this, I was like, oh, this is not a set. They couldnot afford to create a set like this. This is some kind of actual industrial control room.
Yeah, it's very functional looking, like especially in the still that you popped into our notes here, it's like you can see computer screens online in the background, like all the lights are on. Presumably they did not fire the plant back up again in full, but everything looks very operational, like this is not a this is not a power plant that was taken off line because it had completely worn out. No, it came offline because of you know, other other reasons.
I'm just imagining Bruno like that guy in Chernobyl where he's like, no, get my reactors started again.
But yeah, these are some great spaces that that we see throughout the picture at times, like huge vault doors in this case, you know, big control banks, some great hallways and yeah, so some and it feels significantly different compared to a lot of the grimy industrial spaces that we've seen a lot of it our other movies that we watch for Weird House Cinema. Yeah.
Yeah, So a guy from wearing the Mega Forest uniform comes into this room. He says, what's going on here? And the guy manning the computer says, there's an SOS from Venice, sir. And before the guy even finishes saying Venice, we hear people screaming from somewhere and then we realize they're screaming on the TV that they're watching. So let's
watch and we get to see the closed circuit camera. Uh, and it's like some workers in a steamy tunnel somewhere and they're looking up at the camera in the tunnel and screaming for help. And the performances of these guys is so strong. So they're like overacting in one sense where they're like a just screaming at the top of their lungs. You can see their uvulas, you know, teeth out,
just shrieking. But then there are also moments where they'll like pause and look at the camera for a second and then scream for help again.
Yeah, so we.
See a look of grave concern on the face of the Mega Force leader. I think this guy is technically the Kernel, but this guy is great. He's got a very Charlton Hesteny stab you with his Adam's Apple quality. But he also I don't know exactly why, maybe because of the yellow shirt. He just reminded me of corn, Like he's a big old corn corn on the cob, just yellow, sweet summer corn. And he also is a really funny character because the Corn guy here stares into
space for several seconds before saying his lines. It does it repeatedly, like it'll cut to the Megaforce guy and then engage the emergency protocol.
I want to say that he's also one of these characters that is often clearly reading lines off a screen, whether they're actually on the screen digitally or they are pasted there probably and we just can't see it from a dude to the camera angle.
Yeah. So in the scene, Corn commander here wants to get in touch with somebody named Raffleson, who is the scientist in charge of whatever they're looking at, but they're
unable to raise him. Communications have been cut. As I alluded to earlier, it's kind of hard to describe what makes this so funny, but all throughout here there is pretty high level hilarity in like everyan aspect of the movie, from the physical blocking and posture of the actors to the facial expressions, to the lines as scripted, to the line deliveries, Like everything on that level is super awkward and funny and sometimes adorable.
Yeah, and it's at that level that is I think ultimately very difficult to reproduce for comedic value. Like, yes, it's a rarey. You see something like Garth Morange's Dark Place that was able to so perfectly capture the sort of vibe that was achieved organically in this picture.
Right, Yes, Okay, So we go into the facility that we were just watching on the closed circuit and we follow around a couple of the workers in jumpsuits as they run around the tunnels. Occasionally they remember to act scared and then they you know, and they'll have lines about how it seems like it's curtains for us. And eventually they wander up on a monster hidden by fog, so we don't get a good look at it yet, but you know that they're like, oh no, it's our time,
so you know, they know they're done for. Then we cut back to another guy. It's this curly haired guy we follow as he runs around the tunnels. He makes some really good faces if you pause it at essentially any moment, and then he gets assaulted by this other guy, Drake. Drake is the scientist who we mentioned earlier who gives the just really astoundingly unhinged performance. When he first sees him, he's like, oh, Drake, it's you. What happened to the others?
And then Drake puts a hand on him and he's like, gooss. Drake starts I think, sort of choking him, and I don't know, probably eats him or something. We like Drake, by the way, So next we cut back to headquarters and we got the corn commander, this other kind of dorky Megaporce guy, and a lady. Now. Also, she's wearing a vest with arched caps leaves, but hers is a leather vest to for a jumpsuit, so I think she's supposed to look cool. And these three people are Sarah Drumble,
the scientist. We've got Bond, who is the captain of the Megaphore Strike Team, which will be our colonial space Marines for the film. I recall Bond being quite unremarkable. I don't know what to say about him. He's just like leader Man. And then of course there's Commander Corn who is some kind of some kind of colonel. He stays back in the command center for much of the movie.
Yeah, he's played by one time actor Bruce McFarland, and Raffleson on the screen is played by Al McFarland. So I don't know if these two were like father and son, if they were related, or they're just having to be a couple of McFarland's in Italy at the time.
So the three of them are in what looks like one of those featureless rooms attached to the side of a church where you do Sunday school and they are watching a videotape of the scientist Raffleson. He's the big science guy in charge of all the dudes in the tunnels. And Raffleson on the tape is saying, well, yeah, one thing's for sure. Our group here seems to be condemned to certain death, a hideous death. And he could not sound more bored. But Raffleson says he wants to create
a record of what happened here. He says, about a week ago, strange things started to take place. Several of his team disappeared, and others showed signs of mental disturbance. And then Drake, who's the guy we met in the tunnel, has begun to insist that he is in touch with a community of strange creatures, almost as if he were and then the signal cuts off, cut to static.
Now, at this point, I feel like the movie is starting to fire on all cylinders, and you're and to be fair, like doesn't feel particularly aliensy at this point, doesn't feel like a huge rip off. You know, it's kind of like, all right, some sort of weird creature community has emerged in post apocalyptic Venice.
Okay, yeah, you could imagine it going in other directions. But so okay, here the corn commander tells Sarah Drumble that, uh, she's gonna have to go on a mission into the lab facility to see if they can rescue any survivors. And then there's a guy who pipes up from the back of the room who's he says something like, you know, to heck with the survivors, I need Raffleson's secret diary. Who is this guy? Well, he introduces himself as Samuel Fuller from the Tubular Corporation.
Oh my god, I love the Tubular Corporation. And they say it a lot.
They never stopped so many references to the Tubular Corporation, So I'm trying to think, is there something that refers to Like, where does that title come from? Obviously this is either Wayland Utani or Cyberdine, But where does where does what is the source of tubular?
They made tubes, I guess, or they were just like totally tubular.
They did like tunnels. We learned that, Yeah.
Tubular tubular. It's just so funny. But I did find it hilarious. Did someone out there on one of these like there's like a Terminator Wiki had added a page for the Tubular Corporation, and it's stressed that it was non cannon, that it was not officially part of the Terminator universe. But I'm sorry you've put it on the Terminator Wiki, so it kind of is at this point. It's just like an Italian company that is in the same world.
Tubular Corporation is Terminator Dutero canon. Yeah, it's like how some Christians feel about like the Book of Enoch or something. Okay, but anyway, this guy, Samuel Fuller, he is like our Burke from Aliens, except it completely misses the thrust of Burke, which is that Burke is charming at first and then is revealed to be a snake. Samuel Fuller is mean and explicitly evil from the very first moment. He is like if the abstract notion of contempt became flesh and blood.
He's sneering in every single scene. You know. He comes up and he's like, I'm going on the mission. And then the Strikeforce guy Bond, he says, it's only right that the lady here comes along. She's a scientist, but I don't want any other civilians on the mission. And then Fuller comes up and sneers at him. Fuller, by the way, is wearing like a like a black and red jacket with these big pouches on it, like a cargo pockets jacket and a black and red hat. So
again very terminator color scheme. And he comes up and sneers at the guy, and he says, eleven years in the Marines were enough to teach me that whoever talks a lot doesn't get much done, and you seem to talk a lot. So Bond is he gets mad and he's gonna lunge, but the corn commander holds him back and says, easy, Bond. Fuller here is an expert in
martial arts. So the colonel explains that Bond doesn't really have a choice because the Tubular Corporation is the one that ordered the mission that they've got to go in there, and they're the ones that constructed the viaduct leading to the underground venus, which is like where they're headed.
Yeah, so that is, to your point, basically a tube. It is, right, Yeah, it's a tube. So Sneerman here is with the company and he gets to come along with the Mega Force because he's with the company, and because he knows karate. Oh.
Also here the scientist Sarah Drumbel speaks up and she says the project was supposed to purify the city's polluted waters. As things stand, it appears that all of your millions have only gone to worsen the situation and looks at her ego that remains to be seen. So then they're like, Okay,
we've got fifteen minutes to get ready. So instead of the whole like drop ship situation in Aliens where we get to know everybody, instead we get like a locker room scene where we get to know the Marines before they go through a door. So let's meet our Mega
Force team. They are strongly trying to recreate the competitive swagger and bravado of the colonial Marines when we first meet them in Aliens, but there once again is a malfunction in the photocopier, so these Marines do not feel like the tough, cocky space warriors that they're trying to emulate. This is not Vasquez, Drake, Hudson, Hicks and Apone. Instead, these Marines are They are trying to be cocky and aggressive at one another, but they just come off as
incredibly weird. Like off the charts, bizarre energy. The first one we meet is my favorite by far. This is cost Her. We talked about her earlier, but she is just a gift from Heaven. I love her. When we first meet her, she's looking straight into the camera and breathing heavy. Her first line is when we can't repeat on the show or we're gonna get tagged explicit by
the platforms. But she's just wandering around the Megaporce locker room, playing with guns and suggestively taunting the other MEGAPHCE dudes about not sweating enough and.
Not being real men.
In her interro monologue, she talks about how she's back and she's ready to kick butt, but like, where is she back from? Yeah, I don't think we ever learned that. There's also so much just unreal levels of forced hostility between these people, Like you don't feel tension in the room at all, but they just start insulting each other.
Out of nowhere. There is there's out of nowhere and for no reason, ethnic antagonism that arises and then dissipates where somebody's like, you're Italian and they get real mad at each other and then it just goes away.
Yeah, there's just such an unhinged feeling of what is going to happen next in this scene, And it just feels completely off the rails from the very start, because you have like the apparent fourth wall breaking in the beginning, because who else is she talking to looking right into the camera us, I guess yeah, And I felt kind of put on the spot by it. Then there are all these like weird like first draft insults being thrown around, and just an overbearing sense of wandering and scene filling,
especially as Coster like walks. It's a huge locker room Nicken like, this is clearly one at this nuclear facility, former nuclear facility, and she's just like walking from one marine one Mega Force member to another to insult them and or encourage them, and the camera is just just
tracking her as she goes. So this definitely feels like a scene where they're like, well, we've got to fill we got to fill some time up here, guys, so get out there, do the lines, maybe add a little bit extra, but we're absolutely not going to stop rolling.
Oh it feels so stretched out. It's like it's like a jam band improv so low, but just marines yelling at each other but it's so good.
Yeah.
Oh but then after Costa is insulting everybody, she finally meets the one other marine she likes, the Megaphes guy named Cain, who is a shirtless guy with long blonde hair and sunglasses and a bandana on. So he's like a surfer. Yeah, and he's the only guy that cost Her seems to respect. And Cain is really weirdly like soft spoken, like he just doesn't seem to be playing
one of these, like, you know, marine types. So I think they're trying to reproduce like the Vasquez and Drake friendship from Aliens, but it just doesn't it's not working.
Yeah. I'm gonna shock everyone with the fact here that the actor playing Kine Cortland Riley, this was his only acting role. So I don't know the details on it, but I imagine it's another situation of here's a guy who happened to be in Rome. Maybe he was doing some modeling work or something and got picked after this picture.
Yeah that sounds about right. I mean, he is barely acting, He just kind of says his lines. He then in this scene in the locker room, he like hands cost Her a shotgun and he's like, play with it, and then she does. She like runs around the room pointing it at dudes in the locker room and then gets into a fight with this guy Franzini. It's nuts.
Yeah, yeah, like Franzenians of pulling a switchplay, doesn't he it's I recently rewatched Aliens, and I did think that there were times where the Colonial Marines, again to be sure, under significant stress, were lacking in discipline in some key moments. But Mega Force is just pure anarchy. They haven't even gone out in the field yet, there's no additional stress other than what they brought to the locker room, and they're already at each other's throats.
Okay, So the Mega Force they meet up with the characters we've already met, you know, doctor Sarah, Drumbull and Fuller from the Tubular Corporation. So they opened the door to the secure facility and kickstart the action. And I think here is a good place to kind of shift gears in how we're talking about what happens, because much of the rest of the movie is very action focused and is very much a copy of the plot of Aliens,
but with variations. So speaking, more loosely. From now on, I think we should just talk about things that stood out from this copy of the Alien's plot as it goes forward. So there is generally the shape of things to come is that they go into this facility, they discover the monsters inside, the monsters attack them, They discover
what happened to the previous occupants there. They were attacked by monsters, and then there is a betrayal where the company man tries to I don't know, monster infects some more people, and there's just general fighting. Then there's progression
into another location. There's discovery of a survivor, which is the NEWT type character, the daughter of what's his name Raffles and the guy who was running the facility, and then there is progression to another location where they learn some more stuff about a conspiracy to create monsters I think as a weapon or something. It's your standard, you know, Oh, the evil Corporation was trying to make trying to make giant monsters as I don't know, for military contracts or something.
I don't know why they'd be all that useful. And then there is a self destruct sequence. You have ten minutes to achieve minimum safe distance. Now do we have anything to say else to say about the scene and the tunnels where they come across this guy Drake, who is giving a really a plus performance, like so hyperactive, where he's like, if you enter the city, you're going
to die, and then he screams. He does a scream kind of like in the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and then everybody starts screaming and covering their ears, and I don't know, that was one of the moments that really got me.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what exactly was going on in that sequence, but it's like it's so over the top. Sometimes less is more, but sometimes you've got to be a little more experienced to find that correct level.
I guess I think we could continue to think about the question of like what is it that made them copy certain elements from Aliens and not others. One thing
that they definitely took from Aliens is the motion trackers. Yeah, they really like these handheld devices that look kind of like a remote control where they're scanning for motion in front of them and it's making that pulsing beeping sound that is a very effective thing in Aliens because there's like a sound cue that lets you know something is approaching, but you know you can't hear it directly, so it's it's very creepy like that, and they use that to
the best effect they can in this movie, too, so it kind of makes sense why they lifted that element. They also lifted the element of the monsters cocooning their victims in the walls. So they're like going through these tunnels and they find people who were part of this science mission sort of wrapped up in the slime and stuck to the walls, and you know, they act a lot like the cocooned people in Aliens.
Do, except what bursts out of them not they larval monster of any form, but the monster glove hand of a full sized monster. Yeah, yeah, which I liked, but it is also stupid.
There is a scene a lot like the the assault on the Hive in Aliens, where you know, the Marines are going through these dark tunnels and they get confused and attacked by monsters in the dark.
And this this sequence, the sequence where they're actually fighting the monsters, I thought, is way better than it had any right to be.
Yeah, pretty good.
The monsters look pretty good. They're like throw they throw a dude over a rail. There are a lot of scenes of monsters being shot with these shotguns. So it all came together pretty well, and it kind of matches up with something Tyler had to say about the production that that basically Bruno is really focused on the technical aspects of the shoot, and meanwhile the dialogue was maybe
you know, second or third in everyone's priority. In that Fangoria interview, she said, quote, there was a lovely woman on set. I believe she was Australian who was supposed to be the dialogue coach, if you will. So if she wasn't there, you could say whatever you wanted and Bruno would have no idea. Bruno didn't speak English.
Oh man, I actually can't even imagine that directing a film and a language that I don't speak, that that's like a difficult task.
But directing this film in a language you don't speak, maybe maybe you know, especially I mean I can maybe see where like Bruno is coming from. It's kind of like, all right, I've got all I can handle is the technical stuff here. Someone else is going to have to handle this script and talking to these actors because there's just not enough time.
So onto more elements they copy from Aliens. There's, of course, the Newt character and the discovery of her. That scene is similar to how it is in Aliens. They've got the scene where they sort of create a defensible position and they're trying to they're trying to prevent the monsters from coming in getting them, and it's it's very similar as it is in Aliens. It's like, oh, they're inside the perimeter. They cut the power, but they don't say
how could they cut the power? Man their animals. I think they just say how could they cut the power? I don't recall anybody saying game over man, game over?
No they didn't. They they showed some restraint. But there are plenty of lines that are just copied wholesale, Like there's the pull back and forth where the Newt character in Aliens is like my mother said, there weren't monsters, but there are you know that effect. Basically have that here as well. The scene where Newt is separated from from Ripley, that's pretty much directly copied here, but without without the as effective a set being utilized. So yeah, there are multiple places like that.
I already mentioned this earlier, but one scene that is copied almost exactly is the scene in Aliens where Burke is trying to infect Ripley and Newt with face huggers while they're taking a nap. He like releases them into the room with them and then turns off the monitors so none of the soldiers can see. That happens almost exactly the same in this with Fuller like sitting there watching coldly as you know, they're screaming for help and
what is it? Though it's Ripley. She manages to get everybody's attention by holding a lighter up to the sprinkler system so they think there's a fire. Very clever on Ripley's part. I love that. It's a good, good moment of fast thinking and Aliens. But she does something different in this movie. What does she do?
Oh, this is a great question that I don't know they answer to. I'm not sure how they wrap this sceneau.
It's like she I think she just like presses an alarm, but it's a little more direct.
Yeah, that sounds I believe you're correct on that. But then they have basically the same outcome where they're like, well, we should just execute this guy. He's not on our side, But unfortunately for them, it becomes apparent as we proceed through the plot here that our company man is not a man. He's maybe a little more like Ash from Alien by way of Terminator.
That's right, So yes, it's more like the Ash reveal, but the format is Terminator.
Like.
He gets part of his face scraped off and he's got a metal indo skeleton, so he looks like a T eight hundred, yeah, and has revealed that the company. Yeah, the company man is here to ensure that their profits are secured and I don't know, to erase any evidence of what happened here. I don't remember the exact details, but he just turns out to be a bad guy and he's chasing our heroes around. You know, all of
those space marines get wiped out by the monsters. But then the Fuller here is chasing Sarah Drumble around in this facility, much like the scene where the Terminator is chasing Sarah Connor in the computer factory at the end of Terminator there, Oh, when Fuller gets kind of semi defeated several times, but they comes back. You know, there are people who are trying to shoot him, and he's like, you fool, I am immune to bullets. But then Sarah defeats him with an with a fire extinguisher.
I think, yeah, yeah, she's like praising with a fire extinguisher. And they not only need to escape the terminator, they need to escape the facility, which is going to explode. And just when he struck, Yeah, just when you think this film is out of jaw dropping choices, they escape. I think we reference this already via time machine. They find a Tubular Company time machine they also make tubes through time and space apparently, and they climb aboard that and escape into the.
Past, Yes, into the past, into you know, Venice of nineteen eighty nine.
I would have also settled for escape into the future where they land up in the background of a Stanley Tucci documentary and Stanley Tucci has like jump in and help defeat the enemy here, but they went in the past instead. I'm making you zucchini pasta.
Yeah, yeah, So this coda is there are a lot of like jaw on the floor things in Shocking Dark, but this was the one for me. I could not believe it that the ending involved a twist with time travel. There's no hint earlier on that there's time travel. They just like go into a room while they're trying to escape the blast, and it's like, welcome to the Tubular Corporation time machine. Yes, use the following controls to go
into the past, and they do. And then it turns out that Fuller, the Terminator also took a time machine into the past. To chase them, you.
Have to chase them through the streets of Venice.
Yes, chases them around Venice while they're asking just Italians for help, you know, and so the Terminator's like throwing them into the canals anybody who tries to help them. And then also they defeat. So Sarah defeats the terminator by tossing him a remote control that is somehow associated with the time machine. I don't understand why this defeated him, but she's like catch and throws him the remote and he catches it. Then just electricity shoots all over the place and he's dead.
I guess, yep, enemy defeat it. It felt a little pressed for time perhaps, and I have to say, no gondola chases. I think we needed a gondola chase here, But you know, last five minutes of the picture, I guess they didn't have time.
That's what a Roger Moore era James Bond a movie you would have done, but not Shocking Dark. But so it's interesting that you were like watching Shocking Dark and it's a ripoff of Aliens, and you forget that it was, according to the poster and the box art and the title supposed to be a ripoff of Terminator, and you just forget that that's even what you signed up for until the last fifteen minutes of the movie and then oh, you're like, oh, now it is a ripoff of Terminator.
We're done with Aliens now. Now for the rest of the runtime, it's Terminator. We got time travel, killer robots, uh and Sarah Sarah Connor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly by that point to pick you forgotten Terminator was really in the mix, so that the time travel comes out of nowhere. But I guess makes sense if you realize, well, it was a Terminator rip off all along as well.
So I'm so glad you picked Shocking Dark for the show. This was a beautiful experience and I know I'm going to watch this one many times to come.
Yeah, Like I say, it's been a while since we watched something this schlocky, so it was a nice return. I don't think we could cover a film like this every week. I don't think there are enough schlocky films of this caliber out there ultimately, but it's great to return to them. Rob.
I don't know if you've had the experience, but in my I feel like movies of this sort that are extremely pleasing to watch and have this kind of awkwardness to them are actually harder to cover and explain on the show than some technically duller films are.
Well, sometimes those technically dull films have also have plots that you can really follow because they're like bullet points, you know, yeah, and or there's not a lot happening this one. There's always a lot of things happening. There's like to the point where I have difficulty remembering exactly, you know, what all the plot points are. I just remember the spectacle of the acting, and then sometimes the monsters.
But yeah, I see what you're talking about. But luckily, Shocking Dark is a film that invites you to view it over and over again.
Yes, I do feel like I have somewhat fallen short in describing its virtues, but it I hope I can at least say, if you like schlock movies, you should see it. It needs to be you need to see it for yourself. You've got to have the experience.
Absolutely all right, We're going to go ahead and close the time machine hatch on this selection of Weird House Cinema, but we'll be back next week with something else. I'd reminded. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast Science and culture podcasts with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film on Weird
House Cinema. If you want to see a list of all the movies we've covered over the years, go to letterbox dot com. That's L E. T. T Er dot com. Our username is weird house and there you will find the list and sometimes you'll get a peek ahead at what's coming out the following week.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 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.