Weirdhouse Cinema: Zeiram

do you know? This is our very first space bounty Hunter movie, and I think I'll have to be honest and say that za Ram is not the most scintillating movie I have ever seen, but it has a really great central monster as it is has a fun bounty Hunter and it is light years beyond the quality of the other main Space bounty Hunter title in my mental database, which is also from nine and is called a Braxis Guardian of the Universe. Rob, have you seen this one

with Jesse the Body Ventura? I have. I believe I watched the Riff Tracks version of it, uh, and I remember it being bad, and I definitely remember the two principal cast members. Bractis goes way like when I very first started getting into b movies in like high school, you know, and my friends and I were going to the uh to like the used book and and DVD store and digging through their like trash pile to see what we could find. This is one of the ones

we dug up. So it's got Jesse the Body Ventura as the space bounty hunter, and it's got Sven ole A Thorson, who you might know from Oh, I don't know. He was in Conan, I think, uh, and they're running around some Yeah, yeah, they're they're running around some town in Ontario, and uh, Spin is the is the fugitive, and I recall he keeps grabbing people and asking them if they know how to compute the anti life equation. Oh yes, uh yeah. Spin shows up in a number

of different Arnold movies. He was kind of like part of the the ensemble, I believe, um, but then eventually starts showing up by, you know, doing solo projects as well. Do you think they originally wanted Arnold for a Praxis but he, I don't know, went on to Determinator two or something. I can't imagine Arnold was ever in talks for a Practis. I think I think this this project

was in a different orbit entirely. But hey, a space bounty hunter can be a lot of fun because Okay, so you know, you have like two parties arrived from other worlds. Now they're here on Earth, and there's already a chase going on, so like, you know, it's not like you have to get to that part once they're here. One is already in pursuit of the other, and that's

a good setup. Yeah, absolutely. Um. You know, in general, the bounty hunter uh scenario makes for good fiction, especially when you know, because you can do the same thing, like who's this mysterious individual chasing this other mysterious individual. Well you're gonna have to explain it to the bystanders and they become part of the whole plot. But yeah, throw in space and alien ends, and you've you've got

yourself a winning formula. Um. And I think that's one of the things that I like about Za Ram is that it's a pretty simple formula. They don't they get into a fair amount of complexity with the monster itself, but in terms of the basic plotting, uh, into a certain extent, the world building, they keep it simple. Um, this is a movie where the title is the name of the monster. Uh. So you know it's going to

be monster centric. There's extremely little plot in this movie. Yeah, but what what it lacks in, uh, in story complexity, I would say it's somewhat makes up for in the form of the far more interesting than spin only Thorsen Fugitive, which is an elegantly haberdash to bipedal star beast who has so many now I reveal my true form moments. I lost count of them, like every time it now I reveal my true forms. There's another one coming, that's right.

Um My son walked in and watched part of this with me because because this is ultimately a pretty pretty harmless movie. It's got a little bit of a little bit of a monster blood and monster grossness in it, and some sci fi weapon fire, but for the most part, pretty wholesome. Uh. So he was watching part of this and he was he was at least acting a little exasperated. He was into the monster designs. But he's like, haven't they almost killed this thing like six times? Yeah? Yeah,

that they have. Uh. Luckily it finally sticks. But I'll tell you something else. It sticks. Yeah, this monster's design sticks with you. Because I had never seen this film and its entirety, but I caught I think I caught part of it back in the nineties on the Sci

Fi Channel. They had a dub version I think they showed and it was one of those where you know, who knows what else was going on, But I only caught just a glimpse of it, just enough to watch like one or two scenes with the title creature, this hulking, relentless alien bioweapon that you know, it seems like this thoroughly unique amalgam of alarm features, you know, which is is good in any monster, because monsters are are often this sort of a Malcolm, but it's a monster where

it's primary form, the one that gets the most screen time. It's suggests elements of Samurai and one mushrooms and sting rays. You know, obviously there's a little bit of Xeno morph sprinkled in there. There's also a sense of the Cyclops and just much much more like it seems like they've they've added enough elements that it just becomes uh, you know,

unique feeling. And it also made an impression on me because at the time I have not seen much in the way of Japanese cinema, especially you know, the sort of the bio horror realm of Japanese cinema, you know, thinking of classics like Akira or Tetsuo the Iron Man. But again, I didn't see the whole film. I forgot about this creature for the most part, but occasionally I would be reminded of him. And maybe it's because I've been watching the Boba Fete series with with alien bounty hunters.

Maybe that that made me think of him again. Um, I was like, Okay, I need to look this film up. I need to see who this mysterious uh um creature was and what this film consisted of and give it a proper viewing. And and I would argue, maybe you still don't know who this alien creature was, because I don't think the movie really addresses that question much. No, we don't know really where he's from or what he

did do have a bounty hunter chasing after him. I mean, he could be a good guy for all we know, though probably not. Um, his his backstory is not really fleshed out. All we're really told is that he's he's essentially some sort of bioweapon. I'm gonna buck expectations and argue that when it really comes down to it. Much like the original Alien Za Ram is a movie about work in the workplace, you know, because it's about a It's not really about human relationships. It's not really about

good versus evil. It's really about people trying to do their jobs. So you have a couple of power company eyes who have a job to do. There are main human characters, and then you have your Xeno Legal bounty hunter who has a job to do and she's our main sort of you know, superhuman hero. And the movie is essentially what happens when those two groups trying to do their jobs jam into each other a cross purposes.

It's like, you know, when you see a road partially blocked for digging on a pipe or something, and then there's a delivery driver who has to get through but their truck won't fit the gap, and they start arguing. Except add in space tentacles. Yeah, I think I think you're essentially right here. Um. I wonder what we're to make of the fact that zyr In itself is essentially

a product in in a humanoid form. You know, I don't know, maybe there's nothing to be to be made with that, But across across my mind, oh, no, I can see it if he's a bioeapon. I mean, like much like you know when when I watch Alien. Uh. The movie raises lots of great questions and I love it.

But one of one of the ones I think people don't think about very often is I'm like, man, if like the Whaland Utahny Corporation had better workplace protections, Like if they they had better like union regulations in place or something, a lot of this could have been avoided. Um, but probably all of it. But no, I mean, it's just like, it's a movie about work problems and this is kind of the same. It's like, why did these two electricians have to go into the warehouse to investigate

the alien technology themselves? Couldn't they have called a supervisor to to deal with this? Yeah? Yeah, it seems like there should be more of a system in place. Shouldn't the police maybe get involved? I don't know, Yeah, you would think so. All right, So the elevator pitch for z Ram, I feel like we've basically done it already. It's an alien bounty hunter alien bounty taking place on Earth,

drawing earthlands into the wild cosmic scenario. Did you did you say Earthlands, did I I don't know Earthlands, earth Links, maybe Earths. I like in this universe. I'm just I'm expanding on the Z A Ram universe here already, all right, okay, so who meets a Ram? Oh no, we gotta have some trailer first. Oh oh sorry, okay, let's hear some trailer. The people of Earth are about to be visited by some guests. While they're here, try and make them the feel welcome. If you can't take the heat, get out

of the galaxy. Yeah. Not not a great trailer, my fad. But that's the that's the English language shoil or the voiceover is a bit a bit much. But we wanted to have something for you that wasn't just explosion sounds. I mean a big part of this movie is explosion sounds. Yes, okay, so who made this thing? All right? So the director, one of the writers, and the character designer. His Kita am Amia Ammama has an illustration background born nineteen nine.

And I think the illustration background makes sense given just how visual this movie is, Like, this is a movie that's very much about look at this look at this monster. Look what happens when he has a costume change? Um, you know that the character design elements are very strong in this I agree so much so that there are even uh moments of this movie that look like hand drawn illustrations. Like there is an opening scene. Actually, it's it might be my favorite part of the whole movie

is the black and white silhouette opening sequence. Um. And when the the outline of za Ram is first revealed, before we see any of the you know, the surface detail, Zerram kind of looks like an illustration. He looks like a hand drawn animation until it's revealed like, oh no, this is somebody in a costume lit from behind. Yeah, and he's yeah, it's a pretty great costume. It's one of these where za Ram generally feels warmoss but has

very a very humanoid gait about him, very humanoid dimensions. Uh. I feel like it was very effectively done. Heavy footfalls. Z Ram likes to kind of clump around on the floor. Now. Emmamia has done a lot of work in design and effects, including uh, this is interesting. He was an effects animator on nine gun Head, which we covered on Weird House

in the Beast. Oh yeah, that's right. He's also worked as a character designer for video games such as clock Tower three, which I believe I played that one back in the day, and like PS two UM. He was also involved in some only Musha titles and az a Ram is very much his sort of his follow up to his first full length film, Cyber Ninja, from which I have not seen, but I looked at some stills from it. Looked at at least one clip. It looks like a lot of fun and there are also some

really out there monster designs in it. I have not seen it, but I will watch based on the title alone. So he would go on to direct a sequelsz A Ram two, and there's also a spinoff animated series that seemed to have quite a following, aria Zeri Um The

Bounty Hunter. He's worked a lot over the years, though, and his filmography includes some common writer films and what seems like dozens of titles in the film TV franchise Garo, which like these other titles, is a toku satsu or live action special effects drama UH, this time about a man in magical armor who has to protect humanity against the horrors, which I believe are some sort of demons. Now.

Garo I've seen is is sometimes described as a midnight uh Toko Satsu series as it yes contains like people and you know heroes and fancy armor suits battling monsters, but it apparently has darker elements for grown ups and its and it's such as is shown on TV like Late at Night Zairam. However, is not midnight Toko Satsu. This is Toko Satsu for the whole family. Again, my nine year olds and walked in and seemed to enjoy

it and critiqued it a little bit. Yeah, I'd say that probably the scariest thing in here is well, I mean some shots of Zerram the monster have like that that scary face thing that comes out of it, which we can talk about more. But uh, probably the worst thing is that it like really bites the electricians arm bad and leaves a big bloody welt. If you can

deal with that, I think the movie's cool. Yeah. Um, now with the neck, I want to hit the other writing credit on this, who is also the visual effects coordinator, and I think it becomes pretty obviously we're kind of in pumpkinhead territory with this film. Uh. This is this is a film you know by special effects people with very much a special effects design mentality that goes into it. So it's it's monster first, it's visuals first, and maybe the actual plotting and acting and so forth takes a

backseat to all of that. Now, your Pumpkinhead comparison, that was directed by Stan Winston, right, Am I right about that? I believe? So? Yes, Uh that Isten of course, a legend of special effects. Uh not so much, you know, a legendary director. Um, but but he did get in there. He got in there with Pumpkinhead in and he I think he did. He directed mostly some other short stuff. He directed a film titled A nome Name norm from that I've never heard of, so just now, and he

did some video shorts. But yeah, Pumpkinhead was his chance to really get in there and show what he could do. And it's mostly about a really cool monster. But because you've got some Lance Henrickson in there too, I guess yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's an okay horror movie. It's it's a great looking horror movie. Also featuring Dick Warlock. Oh yes, okay, So anyway back to back to za Ram writing credit and visual effects coordinator goes to Hajimi Matsumoto as a writer.

They only worked on the Xerrium movies and three other titles, but Matsumoto has primarily worked in special effects, including some Godzilla movies, GAMMERA Guardian of the Universe, which I which I love. It's a really fun one with a lot of like cute Gamera when he's little and then he becomes your expected Gamera. Is this the second movie we've mentioned in this episode called Guardian of the Universe with the subtitle Guardian the Universe? Oh? Man, that sets up

a perfect sequel idea Gammera versus Abraxas. They gotta duke it out and figure out which one is the real Guardian. Oh it's gotta be Gamera. I'm gonna I vote Gammera every time, especially over over Ventura. But let's see. Oh yeah. But Matsumoto was also also involved in the special effects on Ring uh, the the original Japanese ring upon which the American film The Ring was based. He also worked

on some of the Ring sequels. He worked on Spiral, and he worked on The Grudge, both the Japanese version and the American remake. All right, but we would not have a space bounty Hunter movie without our Space Bounty Hunter. So who who plays this all important character. It is Yuko Mariyama, playing Area of the bounty hunt her. She was born in ninety eight, Japanese actor. This was her first role apparently, and she went on to do the

sequel some TV. She was in Reborn from Hell too, and it looks like she retired from acting between two thousand and two thousand four and possibly went into some sort of education field for some reason. I usually just like to see that. I mean, assuming it wasn't caused by some bad experience or something. When somebody's just like, Okay, I was acting for a while. Now I'm career change,

I'm gonna do something else. Yeah. Based on the limited English information I could find about it, it it sounds like she just like she she eventually found her calling somewhere else. So yeah, more power to her now. As we talked about, this movie doesn't place a lot of dramatic demands on its actors, but I'd say she's good. She she she feels this role quite well. She she wears the power armor, she does a good fight scenes. She has a good

determined stare when facing down the monster. Thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so solid action performance. Uh you know, she comes off as a badass and and uh and and unlike her her AI help her, Bob, she's she's she's kind of reckless, she's relentless. She's like she's got to get her bounty, while while Bob the AI is more concerned about, you know, how this is going to affect their license. Do they do they have the actual permit to use this particular

super weapon against the alien and stuff like that. Oh my, got that interminable argument at the beginning about the zone and whether you're using a zone will cause them to forfeit some percent of the bounty. And we should have had more of that. It could have been the shin Godzilla of Alien Bounty hunter films. Oh that would be a good idea. Alright, so too, Earthlings or earth Linds, if you will get get sucked into this, uh, this

whole situation. And the first of them we'll start with is uh I believe with His name is tep tepe I. I'm sorry, Tepe tepe A tepe the handsome electrician unknown age. This characters played Kuni, hero Ida and um very limited credits on this guy who was in both the zraz Aram movies. Doesn't seem to have been active in a in a long time. But then the other electrician who's our funny electrician, are kind of obnoxious electrician because you know, that's kind of how you know your duo should go

in a film like this. Uh, this is coma and he is played by Yuki hero Hotaru. Born in nineteen fifty one. Hotaru is very active still today, mostly on Japanese television. He made a career for himself initially playing detectives, usually in Japanese pink films. This is a broad category of erotic films in Japanese cinema, with some particularly sleazy titles.

But he seems to have gradually crossed over into mainstream sci fi and horror as well, uh, ultimately starring at or at least acting in a number of TV shows, even kids films. He worked in that Garo series that I mentioned earlier. Um so yeah, and you can see you can ultimately see why because he has a he has a very charismatic face. He's pulled constantly pulling funny weird faces in this film, So you can see why an actor like this would be sort of your go

to for sort of uh, you know, a wonky character roles. Uh, you know, it's certainly in recent decades. Yeah, he's doing a zany Jim Carey kind of thing. Yeah, And we we usually mentioned the music, so I'll go ahead and say that hirokazu Ota is credited with the music. The score is a bit much in places for my taste, but it's pretty effective in other places. Um. This individual also scored the film Roboman ha Kader, from which I haven't seen, but I've I've noticed on shells many times.

It's another one of these sort of hero in armor or robot gear battles evil. All right, Well, you might have already guessed from the way we've been talking about it so far. This is not really one of those movies where it will make much sense to go scene by scene, since there really is very little plot. It is mostly a showcase for for visual spectacles, you know, sci fi tech battles, tentacle attacks, monster transformations, and and

so forth. But we can give you a general picture of the shape of the plot and then talk about some highlights that we really enjoyed. And Uh, the first highlight I would say is actually the very first thing in the movie Strong. Strong opening sequence might have been my favorite part of the entire thing. And interesting connections throughout this opening sequence to the Suta car because you have this background of deep chance, as if you know,

the moon monks are doing matins. But then also you have space marines and these egg shaped e v A helmets much like the uh like the they're shown in the most recent Dune movie. Yeah, yeah, so they're they're they're clearly here or I don't know that they're here. They're there, They're somewhere, presumably in space, maybe on a spaceship or something space station. Yeah, to stop ze Ram

and who they don't stand a chance. No, So what we see is a black and white silhouette of a creature who looks like a person wearing a wide brimmed hat, or perhaps somebody who has a large mushroom cap for a head. And it's hard to tell more than that because the persons in silhouette except when it pauses to suddenly reveal a face, but not with the correct proportions for like a human face, So it's not a face

that would fill what is presumably this creature's head. It's like a little tiny face, and it's in this pale makeup that looks kind of like a mask from no Theater, but with supernasty black teeth, like very scarified. Yeah. And it and when we zoom in on it, it often makes little noises kind of like yeah, stuff like that, which adds to the creepiness. But then, okay, so when we see the face, the face is not proportional to

the size of the head. It's much smaller. It's like a little cameo, you know, a little little tiny face on this big head with the with the wide brimmed hat. And then it is the body of this creature looks like it is wearing some kind of fibery cloak. You know. It's like it's got a big kind of ragged cape. Yeah, like it's been it's been tromping through humanoid realms, and

so it is taken on the guise of human clothing. Um. And and I think it adds to sort of the category confusion of this monster, Like what is it is? Is the thing and it's the little face on its hat? Is that is there like some sort of a hybrid or I mean, or at least a symbiotic relationship going on here? Or is that the face of the thing? Uh is you know it's wearing clothes, so does it? Is it cultured? Is it? Or is it just a

brute beast? There's so many questions that rise to the surface. Yeah, so the Space Marines unload their pulse rifles on on the monster, but to no avail. The Sombrero creature slaughters them all and escapes whatever wherever it is this opening takes place. I imagine it's supposed to be some kind of exo prison, and we see in the very opening scene that it has a kind of xenomorph like stabbing jaw to face attack that I think is done by

that little tiny face on its hat. But a lot of this action is taking place and like kind of extreme close up. This is a film that likes close ups at times that feel like a little bit too much. Like I felt like you could you could pan out on that row of weapons and I would I would maybe get more out of the theme, but fair enough. Okay. But next thing, after the intro, we go to meet our main characters, who are all going about their business

somewhere in modern day Japan. So we meet our bounty hunter. This is Aria, and she is very on target. She's very on task. She will stop at nothing to capture or kill the hat beast. And I couldn't remember if

they explain this anywhere in the movie. But she looks human, but I think she's supposed to be from another planet, right, She's not like a human who secretly went to space and became a bounty hunter, because this is not understood, as far as I can tell, to take place in the future or anything when humans have gone into space

and some of them might be space bounty hunters. Right, she is, I guess what we might loosely think of as a space human, which, which to a certain extent, is kind of a the legacy of a budget constraints on sci fi various cultures and film cultures, and you know, in various decades where yeah, you just can't have a crazy looking alien for everybody, some of them got to be human. And uh, I don't know, maybe it's something that's fleshed out more in the sequel or the TV series,

but she is. And we're never given any glimpse that like, oh, she may look human, but her blood is blue or purple. Now she's she just seems to be uh a human who happens to have this job and maybe don't know. It's one of these things we're not supposed to think about too much. I guess it's planned nine for matter space that the aliens just look human except they're wearing a shiny shirt. Yeah. But well, but the other possibility

I was considering. Again, I don't think they ever said this, but I was like, well, I wonder if she's like doing I don't know, assuming the appearance of the dominant life form on this planet. Oh yeah, it wasn't that one of the elements and critters where we had we had alien bounty hunters in that, but they ended up looking like people, but they weren't people that could be. Yeah, my critter's knowledge is abysmally low. So as we've we've threatened a few times we may have to to break

the critter seal on the show. It's just hard to choose. I don't know, I've we've we've talked about it. I think off Mike before. But each Critter's movie offers its own alluring choices. I mean, do you go with Critters one? I think what that's is that the one? Uh, or maybe it's a sequel that Leoto Leonardo DiCaprio is in it,

but then one is that the third one? Okay, well, I don't know, two or three perhaps, But then you have a pretty good cast in the first one, and then by part four you have Brad Dorriff showing up. So I don't know, there's so many directions to go. And then of course they're roly poly alien create creatures in all four of them. Uh some some wonderful Gromlin action. Yes, okay, so you've got Aria, she's the main hero. She's she's

the bounty hunter. But then you've got Erie has got of a sidekick, right, sort of the nerd who does her her computing for her. And in the case of this movie, you know they're not gonna just go another humanoid who act kind of nerdy and does computing. They actually have a talking computer. It's just an AI sidekick who constantly explains to the viewer what is happening, Yeah, Bob the AI. Which I think one of the reasons

I like this is this this this alone. And I'm not comparing this movie to Ian em Banks culture series, but in those in those novels, you'll frequently have a have an individual who's often a member of the culture and they have they have an AI that they're talking to all the time and they're having little conversations and disagreements and so forth. So this felt, you know, not not to say that this was even you know, remotely

inspired by it. It's a pretty you know, I think, common idea regarding science fiction, but it it made me think of that a little bit. The Bob's got a little bit of personality. Bob is not just a you know, purely giving the answers to you know, he's not like a Google search result, like, He's got some some thoughts

of his own. Yeah. Yeah, again, he's he's very into making sure that they get to keep their license, that that any weaponry or tactics that they employ, that these are that they have the correct certifications, that they're they're not going to get in trouble. So he's you know, he's very much, um, very lawful mindset, and Aria has more of a chaotic mindset. I'd say, that's right. Yes, So Bob is sort of lawful, neutral and arias kind

of chaotic. Good. Yeah, okay, But then the other two main character are our power company guys, and we mentioned them already, but you have tepe who is he's handsome, sweet, shy. Earnest don't have a lot of notes on tepe A. He's just kind of like, oh, he's a nice guy. But then the other one, you've got his Camilla, who seems a little bit older, um, and he is our fidgety clown, but he ends up really coming through in

a pinch at the end of the movie. Uh. And early on, Kamia has a near meat cute with Iria the bounty hunter because she seems to be buying hundreds of apples and she drops one in the street and then Camia picks it up out of the gutter and tries to run after her. But I don't think they ever come face to face, not at that point, but of course later on they meet and he's like, oh, it's the woman from the street. Though I don't know what the purpose of that is, like that that opening sequence,

because it's like, oh, yeah, I saw you before. Anyway. So this movie, especially early on, is very heavy on techno babble. There is a long scene with Aria and Bob just discussing regulations on the technology they use. Like the main thing I think you need to understand is the concept of a zone. And so there's a long scene where Erie and Bob are talking about the idea

of a zone. Here's my best interpretation of how it works. So, Iria and Bob know that the monster Zairam is headed towards Earth, and they know that it will crash land at roughly a given place at a given time, and they get there before it. So in order to capture Zayram with as little risk as possible, Iria and Bob make an alternate dimension copy of the city district where Ziram is going to land, and then somehow get him to land there instead of in the regular dimensional place.

And this alternate dimension city district is known as a zone. It's like surrounded by invisible walls, and it's just like a regular city, except it has no people in it except whoever teleports into that using Arius transporter. And apparently you collect a reduced bounty if you quote use a zone,

but you gotta do what you gotta do. Ultimately, I liked this aspect of the movie, like it adds an extra little wrinkle to it um and I'm not sure how much of it is them wanting to do something cool with kind of like, oh, they're not battling the alien just on the streets, they're battling it in this strange shadow zone, or if it's kind of like, well, if they're battling in the zone, we don't have to have any extras or worry about why the police aren't

showing up, right, So most of this movie just takes place in the zone. So, like you say, there's no need for extrasm. There was one scene where they cut back to the regular world and they show like the people that the electricians were supposed to be partying with later that night, hanging out and like they're not there, but they're like, oh, I don't miss them. I don't

care that they're not here. Yeah, that was strange. But by the way, I should ask at this point, did you watch that we both used the same Blu ray copy on this. Did you do dubbed or subtitled subtitles? You did subtitles, okay, because so I did the thing where I wasn't sure because sometimes there's a drastic difference between subtitles and uh and and the dub on films

like this. So I did the thing at first where I had both going on and I was, you know, you kind of like trying to split my head um by following both and seeing like which one was the way to go. And I quickly decided, Okay, that doesn't seem to be a tremendous difference. Maybe the subtitles are a little tighter, but I don't think I'm missing out on a lot of plot if I just go ahead

and uh and and employ the dub instead. I mean, it always varies by case, but I think in general dubs are a great option for like silly movies, b movies and stuff like that. I think, you know, I gravitate more towards subtitles if it's like they're they're real strong dramatic performances by the original actors, and you kind of want to hear their original tone and things, even if you don't understand in the language. Uh and and just rely on the subtitles for the for the semantic uh.

But yeah, I mean in a monster movie, I think doubs are great. Okay, Well, we'll come back to this because there'll be two points where I want to know if you have a different understanding of what was occurring based on the subtitles versus my understanding via the doubs. Oh oh, but we didn't finish talking about the zones because the other back. Okay, right, so the one last thing with the zone is like, you can't just walk into or out of a zone like a zone. Again,

it's an alternate dimension. It's surrounded by invisible walls, and you have to have some kind of teleporter device that Aria has set up in her command center in an empty warehouse in order to teleport in and teleport out. And multiple times in the movie, these teleporting devices get broken and that prevents somebody from going one way or the other. But okay, Iria and Bob are discussing zones,

discussing bounties, discussing regulations and technology. Meanwhile, Tepe and Kamia are our power company guys are trying to finish all the jobs they've got left on their list for the day because at least one of them has a date that they need to get to. I don't remember what. I think it's Camia. Um, well, maybe both of them do anyway, but I think Cape has an actual date date. And Kenya is just like hanging out at the box. Yeah, Kemya needs to go hang out with people who don't

actually like him. Um. So, one job that they have to deal with before they can finish up for the day is that somebody is stealing electricity, so they are called to the location where this is this is allegedly happening. They arrive at a warehouse where somebody has rigged up a bootleg power line coming off of the pole, and instead of just cutting the line, they have to go into the warehouse to investigate, and lo and behold it's

it's the command center. It's full of weird, blinking, beeping gizmos. Time to start touching stuff, right, Yeah, also, just put our hands all over this long story short, the two electricians accidentally get teleported into the zone along with aria Za. Ram arrives and this leads into the rest of the movie, which is just one long chain of fights, chases, monster attacks,

and monster transformations. Yeah, all in kind of dreary, mostly dreary looking industrial locations that you know, fit the zone and and fit this style of movie. Though. There is also a wonderful looking I think it's a playground, like a really modern um like early nineties Japanese playground. I didn't look this up to try and figure out where this was. But it looks really cool. I look at this and I'm like, yeah, I wanna I wanna head.

I want to play on that. And so from here on out, I think, because it's just sort of fights and chases and transformations, uh, maybe we can just focus on highlights. Uh. The first big fight between za Ram and Aria is great. It involves energy weapons, ballistic weapons, strange traps, like uh, area has all these different kinds of traps. One shoots out all these tethers that wrap up the monster. One is like, it shoots up these

spikes that surround the monster and us. They're like metal spikes, and I think it has to like bend them down. But then the it also has hand to hand fighting. Iria has the full gamut of bounty hunter skills, so it seems like she is a trapper first and foremost, and she likes using this device that encases someone within like a giant crystal. But then when a fight breaks

out she throws down. Yeah. She she does have a wonderful array of sort of Mandalorian esque or predator esque weaponry, you know, all the all the various bells and whistles. But of course za Ram has his own tricks, and one of them, one of the weirdest ones I thought, was that he throws out these bio prisms that like hatch open and then release these creatures, these weird google eyed critters that look like a cross between Final Stage Bundle fly E t and the baby from the nineties

puppet sitcom Dinosaurs. Yeah. Yeah, and there's one he he patches multiple of these things. Again, it's like it's like a little s organic seed pod looking thing, and when it breaks open, it kind of like like whatever is inside rapidly grows and mutates into this kind of squat goblinoid creature then runs around and squeeze and stuff. Uh, there's one that pops up later on that has three faces and not just one, and the faces kind of

her mind one of the baby masks from Brazil. And they make a kind of noise too, don't they Like, Yeah, these are squee noise. Yeah yeah, yeah, these are not uh, they're not doing you know, heavy heavy booted martial arts like Za ram Is. They're just sort of going like and like running at the heroes. Yeah, it's almost like he's he's weaponizing some other technology, Like like these things are mostly just distraction. They're not They're not going to

really make a huge tactical difference. He's not hatching like elite hunter killers there. These are not his hunting dogs. These are just like blithering clone goblins that you know, are just there to cause a distraction. Agreed, Yes, but I love Yeah, I like them too, And there's a number of them throughout the movie. There was one part, though, I thought it was funny where the Electricians are figuring out what's going on, and um, I think Erie says to them. At least this was how it was in

the subtitles. She goes, don't you get it now, we're in an alternate dimension, and then one of the electricians goes, you're right now. One of my favorite sequences in this um occurs. I want to say, you know, more or less halfway through the film, uh, you know, we've are he had the initial battle was za Ram. Then we get this scene where where's you know? Za Ram has

a run in with our two humanoid characters. And I think at this point it's been established that the humans are on their own in the zone and Area has been like ejected from the zone and can't get back in due to like gadget reasons, right, yeah, the transporter brakes or something. Yeah, so this is where he gets fun because we know she can hold her own against a Ram and and and effectively captures a Ram, but

then she gets booted. Are too human characters mess things up, accidentally freeze a Ram, and z Aram has to figure out what he's gonna do. And so we have z a Ram still in this this form of this hulking bioweapon, you know, clothed in this shroud and having this a large hat like head. Um. We already know that he can rapidly grow grotesque goblinoids to do his bid bidding.

And in a previous scene he used that the mouth or the face on the on the hat, it kind of came out like a tentacle and it bit one of the humans arms. Yeah, yeah, like tore off a bit of skin. So h it has a tissue sample. So we go to this scene where it's just as a Ram alone in this um this in you know, open industrial space, and he removes the cloth from his mouth region and he spits up one of these He kind of like you know, flexes his muscles, uh strains,

spits up one of these seed pods. But instead of throwing it and letting it hatch, he crushes it in his big muscular hand, and some sort of clone slime drips out of it, pools up on the ground, begins to bubble and rapidly grows into a kind of half formed clone of of Cama, or at least the head, uh one arm and part of the torso just laying there in a pile. And it's really grotesque and wonderful.

It mostly just spits up clone goop. But he but but then Zerrium seems to word sort of wordlessly question this thing, and then the goblin clon clone responds with kind of alien gibbering and also a little more oozing of clone goof from the mouth, and then, satisfied with all this, Zerrium then crushes the goblin clone underfoot. I absolutely love just the alien weirdness of this whole scene. Um one of these scenes where there are no humans

at all. It's just monsters doing monster things and having some sort of conversation that we can scarcely understand. Now, this is one of the one scenes I would say if somebody was thinking about showing this movie to a very little kid, I don't know. This one's pretty grotesque and kind of and it's kind of pathetic the way the creature is like no, and Zayram is just like done with you and then squashes him. Now did this have subtitles in your version? No? It didn't. Okay, excellent,

that's good. I would be disappointed, Uh, first of all if I missed out on this the details of this conversation, but I ultimately like not knowing, Like as of human viewer, we're just completely cut out on the details here, Like what is he just saying? Hey, where did that guy go? And he's like, oh, he's over there. I was like, all right, good squash. But maybe he's getting more information about the planet. I'm not sure. It's just it's a

lovely scene. This, I believe is the scene that I saw on television and it just stuck with me because it was just so strange. Yeah, this is a great one that they pushed the weirdness past eleven. It's it's

off the charts here. Another thing that stuck with me was I think I wonder if you agree there's a part in this movie that I think is a direct homage to Aliens, because there is a scene where they're they're fighting with za Ram and then suddenly it pans over to reveal somebody coming in to say that I think tape A is being threatened. But then it pans over and here's camera driving an excavator he's working in

heavy machinery with. And I think it's like framed in stage with the same kind of lighting and stuff as when Ripley comes out in the power loader fight at

the end of Aliens. Would you agree? Yeah? Absolutely, And it seems like that's where they're gonna go, oh, we're gonna we're gonna have kind of a rip off of that scene where it's gonna be Bulldozer versus ari Um, but then it ultimately ends up being for comedic payoff, right because doesn't Zerium just sort of like swap the bulldozer and turns yeah and uh and then and then

Cammia just runs for it. So I I like that ultimately a successful scene if they'd gone if they'd actually had it be kind of this fight, which I think they've done. Didn't they do that in Carnissaur. Doesn't a bulldoz or fight a dinosaur in Carnossaur? Oh? Yeah, somebody gets into like a Bobcat or some one of those smaller one of those a little I don't know what you call the smaller bulldozer, little mandozer. Nobody wants to see that. I mean, Ripley did it best using a

space bulldozer suit. I don't want to see just a normal bulldozer fight a dinosaur. Now. I have another question for you, Joe, regarding um dubs and subtitles. Uh. Okay, So a large part of this film is that the humans are trapped in the zone with za Ram and then in area is stuck on the outside. Okay, but then the human is get in trouble with a Ram and then Iria jumps in and saves them, saves the day. And I don't if it was established how she was able to do that. I missed it. Oh, I don't know.

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. I don't I know what you're talking about. And I don't remember. I think they must have fixed it somehow. And then they just like don't show her teleporting or something. It's like, oh, here she is, you know, Bob got Bob got it all put together, Okay, but she's ultifinitely

not that important. But no, no, no, but yeah, there's some gaps like that, and uh, A lot of the a lot of what Aria and Bob are doing later on is they're like trying to put together like the supercannon or something, or trying to get permission to use it or something. Yeah, there's some question from Bob, especially

if they have authorization to use the super weapon. Uh, and then they have to get it there, and then once it's there, it has to be assemboled, and clearly our electricians are not quite up up to the task, so Aria has to has to slap it together and it's a pretty cool weapon when she fires it off.

Though I like some of the more low tech fighting you see that the you see the electricians doing because and I think we're going to talk about the monster transforming into different stages in a minute, but one of its stages, it's attacking the two electricians and they just start piling furniture on top of it, which I thought

was very funny. Yeah. Yeah, there's another scene where I want to say that the monster is either thrown into or throw somebody else into one of you know, you're just go to set pieces in a film like this, A wall of cardboard boxes clearly empty. Alright, So yeah, one of the this is a film about the monsters, about the monster itself here, and one of the great things about it is that it goes through multiple stages again, like you said, this is a film where Behold my

true form happens again and again. So we have stage one zeri Um, which we've largely described clothed, hulking humanoid warrior. And in my opinion, this is uh z Ram, it is best uh. And I'm realizing here I may be saying zerri Um at times Rams. Okay, who knows, but I think I think za Ram the Tennessee and version is correct. Um. Anyway, this this primary look primary z a Ram, tremendous clothing, accessory options, numerous bioweapons, really comes

off well. But then eventually z Aram gets blasted and we get stage Tuesday Ram, which is a skeletal, multi limbed walker. And this one's a lot of fun because it's a stop motion effect, which obviously has limitations in a film like this. It even has limitations when he's done especially well, like in a Ray Harry House in or like RoboCop two. But you know, generally examples of really well done integration of live action and stop motion. But still the monster looks great in this Yeah, yeah

it does. It's it's sort of a mix of an insect and like a mammal skeleton. Yeah, multi limbs lashing around pretty fun. But eventually that gets blasted too, and we're off to stage three za Ram which it had been established earlier that only the head is important. I think they literally say hat, just the hat, So just at this point, z a Ram is reduced to just that hat, shroom cap, stingray thingy, and it flies around, floats around, you know, kind of looking like a rubber

bat on a string. Uh. There. It reminds me a lot of a lot of various flying Kaiju monsters, so maybe less compelling, but very much expected. I feel like maybe a Kaiju movie that we watched for this show had a monster that could transform into something that looked like this flying mushroom cap or stingray thing. Was it the Godzilla movie? Was it? Did the pollution monster have a flying stingray form? It might have? Remember Anyway, they

eventually capture the stingray hat thing. They get it sealed up in its crystal, but of course it gets out of that as as well. Um and uh. And then we get one last pretty great transformation where the hat is like upside down and a whole bunch of like mutation stuff starts boiling out of it, a very um John Carpenter's the thing asque transformation, and then it transforms into this the Thing esque abomination, which, uh, this was I guess the logical place to go. Like at this point,

za Ram is back in the corner. It's just gonna mutate a bunch and just lash at you with a bunch of tentacles and teeth and mouths and so forth. I feel like this incarnation of za Ram was maybe a bit ambitious, and the full monster comes off a little stiff here, but it's still it's still pretty cool. Well it has at this point though, it is also because it has incorporated some human DNA from CAMA. I think it has like a little human body parts coming

out of it, like nipples and stuff. Yeah, there's it looks like there there might be a boob on it, but not in a way that like is distressing, I guess, just kind of like, oh, I guess that's supposed to be a human breast. Oh yeah, Okay, Now that would have been an interesting way to go if it had taken um came As form that's the final form. I don't know. Oh yeah, yeah, Like if it had gone faull, like they just made a clone of him, but a defective one. Oh you know, it would have been another

great ending. They should have done this. I know we we squashed the came a half clone earlier, but wouldn't it have been great for like a post credit sequence where it's came As friends at the bar, but the clone has shown up to hang out with them, and it's like having out at the bar and has a drink, but it's still like spitting up Clone Goog. So they're in the middle of talking about how they don't miss Camea and they don't mind that he couldn't make it.

But then he does show up and he's just bleeding goo everywhere, and they're like, oh, hey, we were just talking about you Titters in an alien voice, and they just notice a couple more things that I thought were interesting about the ending. One is that in in the end camera has to come through and save the day by using electrician knowledge. He has to repair the wiring. I think multiple times in order to I don't know, power up the device they're using to defeat the monster

in the end. Yeah, this is really great and it made me wonder, not enough to actually watch it. But in the Super Mario Brothers movie, did the Super Mario Brothers end up using their plumbing skills to save the day against That would be a good twist. Yeah, it's been and I don't remember that movie is weird. That's a contender for the show. That is a strange film. I I cannot imagine that the Chris Pratt Mario Brothers Dream make is going to really equal or or you know,

excel in creating the same kind of weird cinematic experience. Wait, does Chris Pratt playing Mark Mario super Mario? That is what Seth I believe was telling us. Okay, so they went from Bob Hoskins to Chris Pratt. Yeah, well it's it's a it's a different, different take on the on on the source material. Okay. Oh oh, no, one last thing, final comment about the movie. I like how it ends

with a graduation photo. Yes, why, I don't know. All the humanoids so after the monsters defeated uria camera tape, they're like, hey, let's all pose for a photo and Bob just like that. They stand together and pose and Bob takes their picture and then it's like best friends, friends forever. It's so wholesome. I love it. Yeah, So yeah, this is not This is not a film that is going to really hit you with a lot, a lot of mysteries and intrigue and double crosses and so forth.

The plots pretty simple, the payoffs are pretty much everything you'd expect, but wonderful, weird monster. And I think this is one of those films that kind of like Pumpkinhead to a certain extent, is you see action figures and costumes and fan art depicting the monster, like the monster has really sort of is really kind of more popular than the film itself, or it seems to be the case. Yeah, that would make sense. Now, Uh a little credit? Where

credits do here? When I first started poking around for places to watch this film, I could not find zay Ram anywhere. I think za Ram two was available as a streaming option or you know, or at least a digital purchase option, and the anime spin off TV series was also available that way. But it looked like I was going to have to obtain a physical copy for sure. So I inquired with the good people at Atlanta's own Video Drome video rental store about it, and they said, sorry,

we don't have a copy. But then they wrote me back and said, actually, we just ordered a copy of it. We've ordered the thirtieth anniversary Blu Ray and so that came in and that's how we got to watch it. It's a it's I think a solid Blu ray release from Media Blasters. It includes a couple of trailers and also a making of feature that I believe popped up on a previous laser disc edition. Oh oh man, can you imagine the experience of watching this on laser disc? Yeah?

I watched part of the making of video um but it's it's pretty bad. Like they're talking to the director in the star and the directors like, I wanted to make a film that was fun. So making a fun film was my primary my primary goal here. Okay, so it was you know that sort of thing. I don't know that there's some more depth, in depth stuff about the effects later on. But anyway, if you live in Atlanta, you can certainly go to Video Drome and rent the

same blue ray disc that we watched it on. You can also check out video Drome at video Drome a t l dot com. And if you want to get some of their merch, and they have a lot of cool merch, you can go to video drome dot tv. So thanks again to the guys at video Drome for hooking us up with our z A ram. All right, if you want to check out more weird house cinema, it happens every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Feed were primarily you know, science and sometimes

culture or sometimes philosophy podcast. Primarily science though, but on Friday's we set both of most of that aside and we enter the zone where there's nothing to worry about except for maybe a strange monster and some you know, questionable acting performances that sort of thing, huge things. As

always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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 I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.