Strange Aeons Radio

167 TWIST OF THE KNIFE!

April 07, 2022 Strange Aeons Radio Season 4 Episode 167
Strange Aeons Radio
167 TWIST OF THE KNIFE!
Show Notes Transcript

167 TWIST OF THE KNIFE!

Tony Kay joins the gang for one last episode before being shown the door, and Vanessa has a meltdown over Archive 81. (Don't even get her started on robot vacuums!) Also discussed: Guardians of Justice and Halo. 

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Oh I'm sorry did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sites to show you strange aeons. Welcome strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there. Oh, that's Vanessa over there. Hello. And if I'm sleeping guys Don't wake me because Anthony James K is here again. Ah, sorry, me. Oh, Joe was always a pleasure to have you here. Tony Raisa back you guys. Thanks for asking me back to the playpen. Yeah, we love having you. Yay. How's everybody doing? Good. Yeah, I mean, we ready to get this show on the road. I realized that I don't really have anything to talk about. Oh, awesome. I'll put out a quick thank you to Todrick for the wonderful pizza party he just purchased for us. Oh, my gosh, thank you. Very nice. Very nice. I don't know while I was gone. Did you guys manage to thank Ron for? Yeah. Oh, good. Oh, we did. If we didn't rock Ron. Thank you, Ron. Yeah, Ron bought us some pizza. And then we're gonna hit us up with a bunch of ideas that he wants to get going for the show. And that is the value for value model right there. So look at Yeah, look. He's Whoa, I don't think I've seen this. Well, that's on you then because it came to the Facebook Messenger. Yeah. I am currently on Facebook, guys, but we all have our moments. Sort of like I used to, quote unquote, run the cryptic on Twitter feed and really not a lot happened that recently got passed off to someone else and he is kicking ass on it. Tons of stuff. He's finding interest. Exactly. Okay, dude, you rock. Thanks to you. credible. That's so good. When when is to con by the end of May. Last weekend in may come up. Yeah, I hope we'll be there. I think that's the plan with bells on. I also got another lovely handwritten note from Danny Willeford. Full Page illustrated envelopes and everything. And Danny, I know you're trying to guilt me into writing you a letter back. It'll never happen. But I do strangely. Love getting mail. And so like, Oh, this is nice. I read it. And then I put it away. Now we thank you. Yes. I also like getting me any I've got a little care package being put together for you though. I think you're gonna dig it. Well, since there's four of us here, how about we do a little round robin on things we've seen lately. And I will start this off. I actually had a little conversation with Andrew Byers of the Friday night Fright Fest podcast. Oh, and he he and I were talking about guardians of justice on Netflix. You guys watch this? No, I have not. This is at shank cars series he produced dread. And something else. I like him he he used to dress up like the crow for like business meetings. Oh, wow. I liner and stuff like that. And I always just kind of admired the fact that he seemed to be insane. And he was working in Hollywood. And he has stopped doing that now. And now that you can see him normally he's just a real handsome young dude. This show, I still can't tell if I really enjoyed it. It is a mixture of animation and a mixture of animation styles and live action. And it's kind of a grim look at at superheroes. But I mean, it starts with basically the Superman character killing himself with a Kryptonite bullet. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty grim. But I was watching this going. This was probably really cool. 15 or 20 years ago, DC is just completely embraced. Everything is grim and all of their movies anyway. Yeah, that's one size fits all at this point, which is really not the way to go. Yeah, that's why Marvel is flourishing and they're floundering basically. Well, I would say Batman read extent, well, not Batman aside, but every time they say, You know what, let's give this other random person a chance to just do with whatever with DC they end up with things like the Joker, so I feel like if that is their business model, they'll save themselves, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. I guess. I think that's what they did with the Batman I feel like yeah, I Oh, we talked about it but then we never aired it. You and I talking about Batman OH THAT'S RIGHT IN LOVE the Batman I liked it but I had issues with part of the problem I think with DC just doing dark on everything it's not every characters dark true not like Batman is the character to go dark dark dark with but Superman does not fit in that world. And when they go dark on me just mean if Superman would dark the world would be pretty screwed. And even as dark as they could do like Batman does sometimes it just kind of goes nuts and does a bunch of shit, right? Yeah, they could always like spin off the red sun and not I know they did a cartoon version but they could do like an actual film version and that might be fun because then it's like actual Superman but for the wrong side quote unquote wrong side. I okay wrong side more time here. Okay, thank you fine all right now Yeah. Today's politics Yes, definitely. This week's politics Yeah, well so I don't know if I can fully recommend this show but it is interesting Well, I'm I finished up archive at one finally it took way too long. I admit that it took me way way way too long. And as you guys know, I love that show. And then oh, it changes drastically the last couple episodes couple of episodes. Son of it. He has got real real bad real bad real bad decisions. I don't think they could if not they could have just said you know what we don't need to make some choices we could just it's fine whatever it's awful. We're ends is a fucking awful anyway. Wow. Okay, then well, it didn't get picked up and I guess we're getting a hint as to why it didn't get picked up. If the quality isn't God, I don't want to see what they would do for season two because I don't want to start with what's his name in the place they left him as we don't need to be there. Fuck those guys for doing that. Like it is the laziest form of into a new dimension and back out again I've ever seen ever let's just use the sets we already have and just walk around and sometimes it's kind of a little bit later in a different filter on the camera, but it's definitely not a different fucking dimension. Don't worry about it. There's a weird shit in here. Oh, the demons i guess it's just my family. It's fine. Oh, they want to have dinner. I wonder if this is the thing I got warned about. I guess not. I'll just sit down and hang out. I only have five minutes. You know, I haven't seen a single episode of the show. So you're probably giving me epic spoilers and I have no clue. I'm trying not to it's it's just there's just managing fairly well to tell you how much she hates it and why if you've seen it, I don't think that she's telling you much at all. No, no, hopefully Yeah, if you actually watch the show this this will really go over her head and not not spoil anything but it is extremely frustrating. There's a lot of bad decisions that happen near the end and I was so sure it was Aliens and it kind of is but kind of isn't and you know what guys? Fucking fuck, it had such a good build up. And that guy's job is incredible. And he would but other than that, I have no strong feelings. I just liked it so much for so long and then they and that girl's really irritating I'm gonna say it the main lead girl awful voice awful. Didn't even like her face that much. I'm done. Oh no it's fine. Anyway, so I'm talking about another one that I'm guessing you're going to hate viciously because it's different than might expect I'm not always like this but if any one of us especially the three of us is gonna go super hatred you for when you really really impressive. Well done, I guess personal apparently well I watched ramrod pluses new show Halo keeping these Amazon fair amount plus. And it starts off. Like cuz I've played all of the Halo games. I've played some of them multiple times. I freaking love this game. And it starts off and the first battle starts with the Master Chief. And they're nailing it where he's killing the elites where they kill him. He kills the elites. The good way you do in the game too. So I'm gone. Are you hit them with a certain amount of machine guns for the first rep goes down then you kill them? Because if you just hold the trigger down, you don't get enough they'll still be shielded. cuz like Jesus six people played this game. But by the end I'm going, did they actually play the game? Or do they just fiddle around with it? Because the mechanics are great. It looks good. Paramount has although they've already shown a Star Trek, they're willing to dump money in their originals. They dumped money in this sucker Jesus it is. Movie quality level stuff you specs really thinks Oh, wow. I might need a new TV or something. You talking about these horrible effects. I didn't think they were horrible. But I didn't think they were movie quality. And I thought the acting was pretty shoddy. And I've never played the game. But I hated when they went to the first person view. And I was like, Oh, well, I hope this is not going to be a regular thing to fanservice much. Well, it's just I don't know. Because I didn't I didn't care much for it. And I wanted to. And then I was like, well, it actually doesn't look any worse than book a Boba Fett or anything like that. So maybe that's just the look of things now and and we're all getting used to it being okay with it. I didn't think the camera angles. The shots I don't think would have translated to a big screen very well at all. I thought it looked very much like TV science fiction. Interesting. Could be well, so tell me this. Do we ever get to see them out of their uniforms? I don't know what the masterchief looks like in the game. Okay. I mean, I've played but there's six of them out now, I think and I don't think he's ever taken his helmet off. The story's weird I'm not sure where they're going with the story. It was very odd to started off with the the way the video games are as Master Chief is the hero. He's the guys saving everybody from the elites and stuff. So so little bit, okay, whatever. He's gonna show up in the like, um, and he started did but of course, he showed up about five minutes late for everything that mattered. I'm curious to see where it goes, I'm still gonna watch it. Yeah, the, the idea of him rebelling against his programming, there's been a little bit of that. But that's also been moved forward by Cortana, which is his computer AI. And he in the game, he really is just a muscle man. He is just a let's kill some shit. And gets curious about things occasionally. But Cortana is the one who's doing all the thinking for him and doing all the figuring way things that need to be done. And he just, he goes along with what she says in the end, even though you know, sometimes he'll the story's pretty straightforward. Usually, there was the scene where he, he grabs the artifact at the beginning, and everything starts to light up. And then there's the scientist who's watching that afterwards. And she says something like, you know, we found this alien artifact, and it's like nothing we've ever seen before. And I was like, Well, that looks a lot like the fifth element effects. And it doesn't look nearly as cool as the energy shields surrounding the aliens. You guys don't know, why is this such an incredible looking thing? I really wanted the effects to be something that, you know, would make you go I've never seen anything like this. But in the 25th century, surely you would seen things much, much cooler. That would be I don't know, I have not seen it. But I wonder if one of the big problems is and often with making a videogame film is that like, Master Chief you play as Master Chief in the games. So to give them that, like a character, where normally it's left void for player agency. That is a huge, like, black hole of you don't really want to give them a personality because then it ruins people's experiences and ideas of who they are when they play that character. But I don't know it's Well, that could have been easily avoided by Cortana. Yeah, having having masterchief be what he is in the game, which is a weapon. Yeah. And Cortana coming in and gone. You know what you might be this is a bad situation. You may not want to do my ad, you may not want to kill this kid, you know, there's plenty of room to have done that. And same kind of problem with Boba Fett. It's like, well, here's this character on his helmet. That's really cool. Well, he's out of the helmet is kind of a dolly looking weird, dude. But so, yeah, it's a it's a tough thing. I'll yeah, like I said, I'll keep watching see where it goes. But I'm curious. I'm genuinely curious. But kind of riffing a little bit off of Kelly's interesting animation that he's not sure he actually liked or I actually caught up with the movie you guys have talked about on podcast before, which is the spine of night, which is an animated fantasy film that's sort of part Ralph Bakshi parts steam punk. It was one of those. And it's also, as you guys talked about before, it's rotoscoped. So that means it's that distinctive style of animation in which like real live action figures are drawn over and animated. And so it has a very unique and a very odd look to it. And I think Kelly you might have been the one who brought this up on the show is that there is an there is a definite uncanny valley. And that I think, was the biggest thing that sort of stuck with me. It's got it's got a lot of interesting kind of ideas. It's a lot of it is basically fantasy tropes being knocked off one after another, but it's got it does have some interesting ideas. There are some really promising things visually, but I think it the whole thing for me was super undercut by the fact that it is very hard to read facial expressions and nuances and facial expression on rotoscope characters. And also you don't do favors for the actors by having the drugs being photorealistic and yet not quite there. The significant thing I kept on thinking of is there are characters in the film that are supposed to be like, they they look, they their their teeth look horrible. They have weird, strange mutated teeth. And you know, and you know, especially like with the one of the main priestess characters, I think the one that's voiced by Lucy Lawless she's supposed to be, she's supposed to be kind of a lorring. And she just looks like a scary meth user. And it's like, not quite doing it. But I in the end it actually. And it's also really downbeat to, yeah, it's downbeat. And I think that the, the animation style actually lends it a dreariness kind of a numb flatness that you wouldn't normally get. I mean, one of the things that I think really what the saving grace of a lot of Ralph Bakshi these movies is that you had patches where it was actual animation, and not just rotoscoping. And also, I think he was just teach us as a more distinctive sensibility. behind the lens when you watch a Bakshi movie, whether it's a fantasy, whether it's a comedy, whether it's like a gritty urban, you know, satire. You can tell who made it, there's a sensibility there. And with this, I kind of didn't get a sense of that. I mean, that said, there are some cool visual ideas. I mean, I, spaceships, you know, winged winged warriors, taking on a giant, you know, steam punk type ship, that that whole tableau was really cool, but the rest of it it was movie. And that's good to know. I literally saw the trailer for this yesterday. And we thinking that the trailer made it seem so epic and fantastic. And this is this incredible. I don't know if it was a South by or whatever, like picture that you have to check out. It's mind blowing, and there's this plant. People keep eating or something. I yeah, I think what I think one of the things is it might if you're watching it on your TV, I'm sure it's a different experience than if you're watching it in a theater. I'm sure that that that probably would have bolstered folks perception of it is just it doesn't I don't think that the look of rotoscoping translate super well to a smaller screen. Much easier to scrutinize and you can't help but do it. Definitely. I thought it was one thing I was thinking while watching the trailer is like these people look at me. And like yeah, there it was like there was a flatness of coloring to them. Yeah, even though the lines were like, Yeah, mimicking that style that gives you that horrible uncanny valley of like, well, you didn't detail it in and you didn't, and detail and just the simplest, just the simple element of the facial expressions. Because there are there's, there's points where, you know, there's there's a big betrayal kind of, you know, 20 minutes or so into the movie where one character betrays another, the character that does the betraying, there's no nuance to his facial expression. So you have no idea that he's gonna, you know, bust around and be a trader. Not because the scripts not telegraphing it, or is doing a good job of camouflaging it but because his facial expressions are so blah, that you have no idea you know, what's going on in his head you have no idea there's there's no way to establish a tether of emotion to anything he's doing because he's a flat ass, you know, cartoon drawing over a real person like everybody else in the movies. So Ralph Bakshi did it better? Yeah, I think that the most interesting thing about this movie is the backstory. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Created by two guys and all of that stuff in that makes it you know, pretty impressive. Because, for me, always The whole point of animation is all right. Our budget doesn't necessarily have to reflect now what we can tell in this story we can go epic and this didn't really go epic. I agree. I agree. It feels very free surprisingly claustrophobic for a quote fantasy epic. Yeah. I would think to maybe some of the newer reactions, you know, coming from certain age ranges maybe rotoscope hasn't been done very much. Yeah. Very, very long time. And even at a time, it was barely done. Yeah. So it's, I could see if you'd never seen Lord of the Rings or was on fire and ice and it was also nice did it and of course, American pop. Yeah. And if he knows which aren't exactly top of the list on a lot of things as talented as they are, this would seem unbelievably unique. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Okay, well, how about we take a little break, guys. And then when we come back we are talking about this is a weird one. slashers that could not be from the 80s. Thank you. On the ABC News Magazine, 2020 with Hugh downs and Barbara Walters, are your kids ready to go movie this weekend? Horror films like these are the most popular choice, graphic orgies of blood and violence, and they watch 50 murders in an hour and a half. Children mesmerized are they harmless? It's always a female victim, and is generally in a sexual context. With reports that life may now be imitating art. Bob Brown shows you what the kids are watching at our house and we're back Eric, please explain to the people this sub genre pick is playing this goddamn subject again. Okay. The idea is 80s We're obviously the V decade for slasher films without without a doubt. So I wanted to do a slasher movie but I'm like, you know, I don't want it to come from the 80s So nothing from the 80s and tossing Halloween there I realized that started in 70s but close enough most of the Halloween movies came out in the old or it cannot be a franchise that is continued on like you can't talk about the new Netflix as Texas Chainsaw Massacre but that didn't come up. But or Jason or any of the reboots and all that shit. So original slasher film, not made in the 80s got it good. I hope so. Because you know it's a little late if you don't Alright, so I will dive in first then. My pick is from 1971 A of blood Anyway, so I get into the influences and stuff this movie has had under notes and trivia because it's had a lot but let's dive into the movie itself had a hard time finding this on Rotten Tomatoes because it's listed under twitch of the death nerve. If that was a strange choice consider beta blood is sort of become its go to title now, in the early 70s, you came up with weird shit titles like that in American you know, drive ins and grind houses so that that's where Twitch at the death nerve came from? Yeah, so my list of I think 12 different titles. Oh, God. The ratings were 86 from the critics and 63 from the audience. So fairly good idea that budget No, I did the box office. Again. It's like for multiple titles and all that stuff. You just can't always get reliable info. Yeah. This was directed by one of the Italian masters Mario Bava. known for many things, including Lisa and the devil, Baron blood. The day she exploded 39 more and 79 Director of Photography credits, so he's also lens master. He shot a lot of his own stuff, too. And 36 Special Effects correct credits, and he also was involved in danger Dr. bleak, yes. Right writer Mario Bava and Tony sitting here. annoying to read an Italian title. Let's see how this name goes. Guiseppe Zuccarello the screenplay. He also did tough to kill and the laughing woman Filippo Antone, who did look at the sky and stray dogs, which is very uncomfortable. So stars Claudine agar, who's in Thunderbolt Blackbelly of the torrential rain chilla let's listen let's make love and the Baptist Church that could be a sequel to listen let's make love Luigi Castelli the good the bad and the ugly for a few dollars more your vices a locked room and only I have the key we still kill the old way plus many other thing, Claudio come SEO who's done vengeance all screwed up and John the Bastard kind of a little different take on John there. Nicolette le plays an uncredited kid in the movie. She was in deep red flesh for Frankenstein and you probably know her best as the Usher and demons. She's like Italian genre cinemas favorite creepy red haired kid. Yeah, she's you can't do much after she got older but when she was a kid, she was in a lot of stuff. Yeah. The movie starts with a lady in a wheelchair rolling around a giant house. Okay, but of course she does not last long. Guess what? It's a murder set up to look like a suicide. This movie is convoluted as hell, even by Italian stories, and this is like Okay, anyways, though this moves that to a group of a woman and a man in bed and looks like it this scene looks like it's straight out of a spy movie from the late 60s and jnb for spotting of January. Yes, it V alcohol of Italian 70 cinema and beyond. Now it looks like the movies just a bunch of teens in a car goofing around. Hey, that sounds familiar. Except they're they're in a groovy dune buggy going down the street then hitting the beach driving around and their wrath is bright yellow Of course. They start off with a very cool scene of music Let's dance has kids with I'm fairly sure unpaid for because it doesn't last long segment of integrated Aveda selling for a while go Oh this is cool and then slowly it works and changes. Okay. In get all the rights for that did yeah. Now there's another lady introduced she's reading Tarot cards. My note here is I wonder if these will ever tie together. And now here's the house. Her house is on the bay. The Bay of blood the the over that the her acting is hilarious she is over the top ridiculous this role of horrible things are going to happen to you because of these cards. There is a little bit more of an effort in this I think than some slasher Italian films to create a three act movie. It's up to you to decide if that was a good idea or not. That's your watch. You got the nice Italian piggish guy going around hitting on women, all the teens from the dune bugs our decks. Not a one of them is a likeable character. And here's where we begin the obvious influence of this film. One of the women decides I'm going to get naked and go swimming in the lake. Yeah, you've heard that before. Exactly. That of course. What a bad idea. That was. The violence in this is disturbing. It's very well done. It's belt Baba. So if he does nothing else, well in his movies, his kills are like, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's some notification are gonna drop a little bit into the influence of this film. A lot of people consider this the godfather of slasher films, and, if not had a huge and profound impact on what slasher films would come. It's also credited as being one of the most influential Italian movies ever made by partially because of that reasons. Writing in 2000, Tim Lucas wrote that the baba film is acknowledging, acknowledged smoking gun behind the body count movies that came out in the 80s. And largely is to a point because these 14 are all done with a movie about 40 minutes in. So their storyline has very little to what's going on. And then it goes back to kind of a JLo style mystery movie. With all the sudden it's just adults. Now there's no teens dying anymore. And include including the wonderful parenting by two of the people who take their kids in a camper and leave them in the middle of nowhere and then just go and you don't see the kids again till the end of the movie. All right, and these are not these are not kids these are, you know, maybe 10 Elders and under. But they talked for a little bit about missing their father and then they head off to the bay. Next 20 minutes or the new lady leading lady finding dead bodies until she sees the man coming at her with an axe. It gets very convoluted and weird at this point. You just started to add anyways. And the ending which I'm not going to say but I'm like what the fuck is what I'm going to say about the ending? It was such honestly, a cornball cheat. That's like, oh, okay, and the music is weird. This happy little All right, we're all gonna have a fun summer camp. So the movie itself is fine. It's not Bob as best by any means. It's not his worst either. It's good. It's good Baba but it is influential to a fault. The problem is that influence on the flat slasher movies is really only about half an hour of this movie. And that is a good solid 40 minutes, half an hour 40 minutes with a teen showing up partying, being sexually active getting killed, and then they're gone. And the rest of the movie is nothing like slasher films. That's a it's an interesting take on that. But I do have many many taglines the second movie rated V for violence. Meet they came to play they stayed to die 13 characters 13 murders the first film that dares to show off hardcore violence nothing is quite prepared you for Mario Bobridge. Arvid cavas carnage just another title maybe Mario Bava has Carnage is the real thing. Built the ultimate tolerance test for flocculants Oh my God. You will pray for the nightmare to end. Maybe the last shot film you will ever want to see. Do you have a legal right to see murder on film? That was the tagline. Under the title snuff is my game. Brace yourself for a film you will never forget. Also under snuff is my game. Terror flows deep Oh, you had a lot of these things. I'm not done. Damn. All this different titles. She's diabolically fiendish savage. You may not walk away from this one. Okay, here's the lesson. If the First Motion Picture to require a face to face warning, maybe the last shock film you ever want to see every ticket holder must pass through the final warning station. We must warn you face to face. Wow. And they did that in some theaters. They had somebody in there doing that. Alternative titles before this one's weird before the fact. Ecology of crime chain reaction. Last house on the left part two. Last house part two new house on the left and Twitch to the death nerve. Second to the last house on the left. Do you like new house? Oh yeah. So this actually came out of producer den Dino dealer Entus heard that one of the script writers was a big fan of cat of nine tails but had fallen out with Dario Argento. And so they kind of picked that up. And Baba said yes, I owe a massive amount of back taxes I'm in. So he got into making a lot of movies quickly for that reason. The he turned to a friend of his who was involved with for feud $5 for an August Moon. Take over his producer. There's a homages to the movie in the first to Friday the 13th with a couple of the kills dude, there's one kill in that movie. That is Friday. 13th Part Two machete. What Not to the face, the Spear of the spear and that is shot for shot. Yeah, that that actually is a true recreation of that same. Dara gento loved this movie so much. He had a friend who was a projectionist, steal a print of the film during his first run in Italy. And the theater ended up having to show hatchet for the honeymoon. That's replaced. Which is another Marvel movie. Yeah. Which is a lot of fun. Yeah. Oh, he still has that print. To this day. She kept it. The film was incredibly low budget part of the reason he DP on it. And he used a wagon. Children's wagon was his dolly tracking shots. And they were able to shoot in a forest Bob was like, no problem. I got you covered. So he broke mine in the forest broke off a bunch of little branches and brought them in framed the camera lens. Oh my god, man. It looks good. Yeah, it looks like there if I hadn't known that and was watching for it while watching the movie. Because if you know it you watch you go, guys. But I don't think I would have said that wouldn't have popped into my head. Oh, that looks like those are branches he's holding. See? So Christopher Lee, recent are a subject of our show, attended a screaming a screening of the film. But Lee hated it was reported to revolted by the film. I'm not surprised. Seen today. It's it. The violence is still disturbing, really well done. Because it's real. It doesn't match up to some of the slashes that followed as far as pure body count by any means. But it is those 3040 minutes are the blueprint for Friday the 13th Without a doubt, and a whole lot of other films obviously, that borrowed from Friday 13th So they have blood out from Kino I believe keynote blu ray is what I watched on that, but can pretty damn good. Yeah. Well, I have to admit, I had a big struggle with your topic. Because I was very confused for a very long time. But by the time I figured out what you were actually asking us to do, I realized I could do one of my favorite movies. Oh, time. So I present to you the 2017 movie. Happy death day. Oh, hey, your dorm room. Yeah, I folded your pants for your great show this morning. Sneaky little water next time the super helpful. Don't be late to the party tonight. Free Happy Birthday. scared me I know this isn't gonna make any sense. stoppable. I feel like I'm losing my mind. You sneaky little biadasz Happy birthday I've already lived through this day so you can hear now okay assuming that I believe any of this is even possible sprinklers Carline the way I see you have unlimited amount of lives, unlimited opportunities to solve their own murder. So I'm supposed to keep dying until I figure out who my killer is. You want to live to see tomorrow, right? Whoever's killing you knows it's your birthday. Pretty much the entire school thinks the signs of major. You should relive the same day over and over again. kind of start to see who you really are. Not to be confused with happy Deathday to you, which is it's equal which is why I was confused. It's all fine. So this definitely serial killer definitely not at 80 is Rotten Tomatoes score of 71% from critics and 67% from audience because they're stupid. The budget for this movie was 4.8 million. The box office was 125 point 5 million. Oh yeah, this is a Blumhouse joint. This is one of those low budget that brought in a lot of budget to make the Blum house thing let's put out 50 movies, two of them will make us a shit ton of money for all the others and this was one of them. So this is directed by Christopher Landon. He has nine directing credits to his name including paranormal activity the marked ones scouts guide to the zombie apocalypse. Happy Deathday as well as happy Deathday to you freaky and the upcoming film, we have a ghost. He also wrote 18 films which is a little bit more of where he comes from including Disturbia and paranormal activities two through six. The writer of this is Scott Loeb Dell of 11 different films including seven episodes of X Men, the Animated Series, man of the house, Johnny nitro and some TV stuff. Mostly he's actually a comic writer for various X Men comics and kind of segwayed into some film writing stars Jessica Roth as Teresa tree Gilman, she's been in 40 things for a long time mostly just walk on TV roles. So it really took a long time for her to land a lead and this is definitely where her career started to take off she she did do a small role in law land, but not not a lot of big stuff. However, she has recently been in the remake of valley girl I don't know if it's good or not. And we all probably saw her in Utopia the TV series also in this is Israel Broussard as Carter he's kind of the the nerdy boy who hangs around. He's been in 21 things including perfect Hi Bling Ring, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before Ruby Modine as Laurie, one of the the roommate she's been in 27 things including Satanic Panic and was a regular in the show shameless. And Rachel Matthews as Daniel who's been in 10 things this was her very first role and she's gone on to be in Looking for Alaska frozen to and the new bat woman as magpie. So the story I buy alright should not like this movie, because I was convinced I hated, hated anything resembling Groundhog's Day. Turns out I was wrong. So tree wakes up in a stranger's dorm room. That's Carter. She has a killer hangover from drinking the night before she has smeared makeup she's wearing his shirt isn't really sure what happened doesn't really care. Her ringtone wakes her up. It's an annoying about birthdays. So you can guess pretty quickly that maybe it is in fact her birthday. It's her calling. She swipes left she has no interest in checking do is it left or right. Left? Sure. I don't know if it's left or right I do. Anyway she knows I'm not that young. She ignores it. And then Carter who is in her class offers her some aspirin. He's obviously a good dude. Trying to help her out. She treats him like total garbage. Basically I rolls him and walks out. She makes her way across the college campus on her way back to her sorority. And pretty much everyone she meets as she walks along she gives either a withering look to or straight up as an asshole to she gets back to the sorority and her sorority. I don't know what the leader of a sorority houses of thoughts a sister or mom or what, whatever you call it, but Danielle reminds her of a party that night, and she better be ready also, for their sorority meeting later that day. She goes up to a room where she runs into her extremely hard working roommate Laurie who should not be in a sorority at all because she's not wearing makeup and is in scrubs and is clearly studying hard for medicine. I've no idea why she isn't a sorority, but that's okay. She offers tree a cupcake because she's discovered it's her birthday. A tree wanted to hide it from everybody but she takes the cupcake blows out the candle and then dumps the desert directly in the trash because it's unneeded carbs. She is a total bitch. Now, if that's the if that hasn't been made clear so far we know because she goes to meet up with her married professor who is a doctor in the learning hospital. I don't really know how this works to go make out with him on his desk before his wife knocks on the door and interrupts their meeting. She then excused herself goes off to the party and on her way to the party, she passes a group of drunk students, one of whom is wearing the strange mascots of the school mascot, which is a giant fat looking baby with a single tooth. It's so bad. But also pretty creepy. I think they did a good job. The person in the group sort of stops, lingers and stares at her and she gives them a look back and keeps walking down into one of those weird creepy nighttime walkway tunnels. And in the middle of the tunnel, there's a music box playing Happy Birthday. How very strange. I wonder why it's there. She walks up to it and she calls out to her friends going, Whoa, whoa goes it's really funny. asshats and no one responds. However, the masked baby face mask where guy does is coming after her with a weapon trying to kill her. And she does actually fight them off pretty nicely. But then her her throat is slit. It's okay, because she wakes up to her birthday ringtone in Carter's room and his T shirt with smeared makeup and a hangover again. Yes, she has restarted the day. However, the first day, she doesn't really know what's up. She just has this constant sense of deja vu, she hasn't really put it together. And then this time, the only difference between that and the previous day is when she gets to the walkway. She's like, I feel like I shouldn't go down here. I'm going to take a different way. And she does and makes it to the party. Which is great because then she gets to make out with one of her roommates crushes this room. And there there's a there's some really good comedy in this film. So she's been digging on the sky through this whole party. And he's like, Yeah, me too. Upstairs. She goes up there. And he's like, Yeah, I'm going to set the mood. And he presses this button on this remote and just like loud, blaring like trance music comes on. And there's like a disco ball with flashing lights. And she's like, What the fuck is this? And so she's kind of trying to like, get ready slash tell him like maybe we can turn it down and he's behind her and she does not notice when baby facemask killer guys shows up murders the guy behind her as she's bitching at him. And she turns around and has to fight this guy off. Of course she loses. wakes up again this time, tries a new tactic does not work wakes up again. This time she's like What the actual fuck is happening? Tells Carter what's going on because he seems curious as to why she's acting so strange. This time when she wakes up in his room, not acting like oh, I have a hangover on I'm a bitch. Instead of being like, What the fuck? Why am I reliving this super day? He's like, let's go get some french fries. Good thing. He's a science major. And so he has a lot of ideas about what might be happening. The first and foremost is, hey, maybe we should like figure out who wants to kill you. Is there any enemies you have? Well, she's the bitch. Everyone is her enemy. So he's like, Okay, well, you're being murdered on your birthday. That seems significant. She's like, Oh, I guess it might be. So she then spends the next round of deaths trying to work out who maybe has it out for her. Maybe who doesn't. She definitely narrows things down, but really not enough until she thinks she's finally figured it out when she sees on TV, a story about an escaped serial killer. So this leads her into a slightly more successful attempt. And we go from there with a lot of twists and turns on tau as to what is happening who's actually out for her. And I will say that it is just a fucking fun ride. This movie. It's so is Groundhog's Day, but not horrible. I do need to rewatch that. Maybe it is pretty damn good. Like a lot as a kid and really hated it. But maybe as an adult all super enjoy it. Plus, I like Bill Murray. So her character one thing I really love about her is she's not helpless. She fights back hard. She gives the guy the killer. A lot of very good blows. Like it is unreal how much you're just like, do you really fucking goddess like she is scrappy. The movie throughout is constantly funny. This actress is incredible. She just does a lot of great facial expressions. She also knows how to go from Super bitchy character to strong powerful woman who's a bitch to actually you know what, maybe I'm making mistakes in my life and I should try and do some changes through all of these reenactments. You completely buy her and you support her and kind of like her all the way through. Even though a lot of people I think who would have played this role would have just gone straight in it. That would have been a huge mistake. Like I said, it's really fucking funny, like at one point, okay, this sounds disturbing. But it is really funny in the moment when she's making out with the guy in the room with the loud music. And it turns out is the killer with the mask. He's on top of her and she's he's trying to strangle her and another dude burst through the door and sees this and kind of looks for a second. She's like looking at the guy like, hey, help me obviously something is wrong here. And of course, it's a sorority style, you know, dorm room situation, the guy kind of gives the doodle wink and is like, and slowly closes the door. And she's looking at him like you piece of actual shapes. It's just it's so funny. Um, but yeah, it may play out funny in the film, but your description was so darn funny. juxtaposition. They're really weird. But things like that. It shouldn't be, but it really is. Later, Carter says at the restaurant to her. Yeah, you know, this reminds me a lot of Groundhog's Day and she's like, Oh, I've never seen that movie. I don't know what you're talking about. There's just these constant like neat little witty things play throughout. A little bit of trivia. The tagline is get up live your day get killed. Again, not very strong. The Bayfield the Bayfield University baby killer costume was designed by Tony Gardner who also designed the Ghostface mask who we all know from Scream films. It was reworked. It was a reworked version of the father's death Halloween costume. director Christopher Landon tested wearing the option of a baby mask for the killer in the in the office and scared a worker confirming his choice. When asked why a baby mask Christopher Landon said he needed a combination of something that would pass for a mascot and a college campus. That was both scary and funny at the same time. Plus, he was expecting a son at the time and so he had a baby on the brain. The scene where tree Gelman walks through campus quad naked in one of the versions had to be done quickly given that it was filmed on an active college campus. This presented the risk of students witnessing the scene being filmed and or taking photos. Jessica Roth described her nude scene as liberating because the women in the film crew were extremely supportive. The theatrical trailer utilizes the song interclub by 50 cent as trees ringtone however, the final film doesn't feature this as the crew and studio could not acquire the rights as a result result and original ringtone composition was concocted. The script was written hyperbolically 10 years earlier, allegedly back in 2007. It was going to start Megan Fox and was to be produced by Michael Bay Oh my gosh I wish may explain the name of the High School in the film or not the school the college in the film Bayfield University is originally titled half to death and the escaped killer character in the film Joseph tombs was named after a high school gym teacher of the writer that's what I got it's like this movie is way better than it has any right to be has no right to be so good I can't remember what caused me to see this film but I remember being completely blown away with by it just be like oh my god, this is such a it's just such a true hidden hidden gem at this point. And then I really loved freaky and so I'm very much looking forward to this next group the guy does. I hope it has the same kind of humor. Very cool. I have not seen this movie but everyone I know whose opinion I remotely respect has thrown praise at it. Yeah, looking forward and the sequels pretty good too. Just very different. Yeah. Very different. Yeah. Yeah, it's the main thing about the sequel and I think this is why a lot of people gave it a bit of shade is it's a science fiction film and not a horror film. So it's still a cool incredible film but it switches gears pretty heavily okay for my choice I went with a little film called laid to rest what is your emergency tells me picked you up on the street from my cemetery us home and tried to hurt me nobody's going to die here tonight videotape all the girls martyrs got a crazy person here we need help God help what do we do now? Die anybody Oh yeah, I've seen this. Oh, you have seen this chrome skull or something like that. I've heard of it. And I know the like, video cover art and stuff, but I've never seen it. Okay, this is from 2009 I can find no budget box office on it. Rotten Tomato critics have it at 80%. Really? And the audience has it at 38% Whoa, now. Wow. The 80% Critics have to be like Fangoria and bloody disgusting Yeah, kind of stuff because no legit viewer is looking at this movie. And saying, you guys got to see it. And I'll tell you why. Written and directed by Robert Hall, who did chrome scroll to? Two episodes of Teen Wolf and a video for the band driving and crying. Oh, my Oh, wow. And that's it. But 98 credits and makeup effects for tons of genre films. And, and that's what this is is just a showcase for his gore effects. Stars Bobby Sue Luthor. She was in the night of the demons remake and a bunch of one offs for various television shows. Kevin Gage, who is very familiar looking, but I didn't really know him from any of his things. He was in point blank, strange land 69 other credits 10 of which are in pre or post production right now. She's Lena Headey who was the queen of Sparta in 300. She was the mob boss and dread and she played Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And then Sean Whalen, who's just got a ton of credits. He's kind of an odd looking guy. And if you saw him, you'd be like, oh, yeah, I know who he is. But he's he's very strange. He was in Halloween two Rob Zombie's Halloween two, three from hell, ghosts, that series that you're watching right now. And hatchet three. Okay, this is a weird one. This Movie is frustrating and that the acting is good enough. And the photography is good and the effects are amazing. And the story is garbage. So the film begins with a credit sequence showing women being assaulted like on videotape, before moving to the girl, which is what she has called in this movie. The girl waking up inside a coffin in a funeral home. The girl manages to knock coffin over, she's freaking out and everything she crawls out, she finds herself locked in the funeral home but there's another room that's open so she goes in there she finds a phone she calls 911. Turns out she has complete amnesia. So she's she gets through to 911 She can't tell the phone operator who, who's legitimately trying to help her can't tell her anything. Get tell her how she got there, why she's there, who she is where she is any of this stuff. But that's okay, because they can trace the call right? Except that at some point she's so flabbergasted with her situation that she literally tears the cord in half somehow. Oh, cheese. Makes no sense. And I just feel like they could still trace where the call had come from because you she didn't kill the phone line. She killed the line from the phone. Oh, oh, to the phone. Right? So anyway, you know, didn't grow up with a landline at home, I guess. Right? In that room she's in though. She sees outside and she's like, Oh, shit, you know, I'm locked into this place. But the lock is on this side of the door so I can get out. But that's when we get our first view of Chrome skull. What a name. Yeah, well, this guy is our slasher. And he's actually got a pretty great design. He looks like he's dressed in a black on black business suit. And he's got a chrome skull mask covering his face. So anyway, the girl is able to bash him in the head with the door and run away from him and get around. She gets out into the street. And she's picked up by a random dude in a truck who's just like, okay, cuz she's screaming and everything. And he's like, Yeah, hop in. And she tells him that she's been locked in a box. Like, she doesn't realize she was in a coffin or something. She's, she's really out of it. He takes her home, where she meets his wife, Lena Headey and the wife is kind of pissy towards her because, like, you know, what are you doing? How, why are you bringing this woman into our house. But also they are broke as fuck, they don't have a phone. The phone got turned off. And, but they can let her take a shower and then take her to the sheriff's office. Nobody can really tell what's going on with her because she's so out of it, that she can't explain herself. She doesn't realize she's in a slasher movie yet. So she thinks she was randomly attacked by this dude. So also, they're in the middle of fucking nowhere. It's like they're on the outskirts of a very tiny town. So after she has a breakdown in the shower, she's in the bedroom and chrome school shows up outside his tractor to this place. My god kills the wife in our first pretty gory set piece. And even though this movie is like dumb, I was like, Okay, I'm in because he pulls Lena Headey out of the window. And then he takes his knife and he jams it through her head and pinzer to the side of the house, and her eyes moving around. I was like, Whoa, holy shit. Okay, so did she survive? I should have not survived that one. Okay, just check. For ice Mar. No stupid questions. Only stupid people. Welcome to the show. Hey, guys. It's good to be back. So the girl and the dude now escaping the dude's truck. And some other people show up at the house her brother and sister in law show up at the house. And Chrome school kills them for daring to show up. And in pretty spectacular ways because remember, the only point of this movie is to show off this guy's affects skills. So he shaves the guy's face off basically Oh, like from about you know, a quarter of his head in just takes it all off. So you get to see blood and nasal passages and everything. I was like alright. He cuts the girl but she doesn't realize that she's running away and and then she kind of twist to look back and you see her guts all fall out of her stomach. Like oh my so our girl dog girl and the dude that she was with, they make it to the next house over which is pretty far away. That's what I'm saying. It's like you know a mile between houses and ship and they meet this creepy dude with lots of toys and models in his house. He also does not have a phone, but he does have internet so he can contact the police through electronic mail. Have you guys heard of this? If you like AOL say when American online thing was a nine I was pretty comfortable with just calling it email. Yeah, but he called it electronic mail. So while he's on the computer he searches the national serial killer database you guys. I'm sure you guys go on this. Yeah, sure. And the site tells him that Chrome skull has killed over 31 girls so far and film their deaths. So we're we're getting into this kind of a mythology of this guy that he is a known serial killer and I kind of liked that idea. It'd be like starting adjacent movie, you know, afraid third part seven or something and just everybody knows that this guy has done this stuff. So like, okay. So they all jump in the car, and they head to the sheriff's but when they get there, Chrome skull has literally killed everyone their ideas, displayed them in lovely ways. No hanging from walls. He opened a cupboard there somebody had stuff like that sense of humor. He has also set up a bunch of cameras, because this is his thing. But it just my monitor right here, but it really just muddies the slasher water because we don't know anything about him. Yeah, we don't know anything about him. We really don't care what his MO is because he is basically Jason Vorhees with no backstory. Don't know why he's so angry, why he's doing all of this stuff. All we know is he's got this amazing design. So they barely escaped. But as they're driving past the funeral home, she makes them stop there because she recognizes it as the place that she was just at the place that she was just out where the guy tried to kill her. Yeah. Would you stop there? Oh, would you go? Let's go past this place very fast. Yeah, we've gone so it makes no sense they do. And they use that place to kind of dress her wounds and everything and set up a base. But wouldn't you know it from school shows up and we find out his lair is the barn next to the funeral home, which is stuffed to the gills with dead women and parts of dead women and parts of dead women stitched together and all sorts of gore special effects and shit it is. It's like, you really want to know this guy's backstory. This is an angry angry. So the dude has gone back to his place and he's gotten his gun and he shoots chrome skull at least twice and he goes down, but then they can't find him. They're still in his lair and everything. But they decided to steal his car, which makes sense to me. But now we're like, Okay, this guy is also he has some kind of superhuman, he's able to take two shots from a big gun and and go hide and everything and then we see him later, like digging the bullets out of his abdomen. And I would say that takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that. You know you're you're really kind of wondering what's going on with this guy. In a another very stupid movie moment. She ditches the two guys that have been trying to help her this entire time and takes the car on her own. But she doesn't realize the chrome skull has a pretty sweet souped up hearse also Oh, and he's able to sync the two GPS units together so you can watch where she's going and follow. And meanwhile the two dudes that she that's kind of James Bond for a fucking electronic mail. And we can intersect GPS Well listen, this one dude just saying world is one dude says electronic mail chrome scholar he's got he would get together he wouldn't know if he would have been you know? Yeah. So those two dudes that were trying to help her they set after her foot and she ends up at this tiny little general store in the middle of nowhere still. And she tries to get out. But the doors lock automatically on her. And she realizes oh no chrome scholar has control of his car somehow. There's there's a lot going on in this there's a lot going on in this surprisingly stupid movie and nothing really going. That's it's just a bunch of weird ideas. Anyway, she tries to get the attention of the clerk by honking the horn. And he's just looking at it like what is up with this crazy lady. Then these two other dudes show up in their car and she's trying to get their attention to their like, you know, oh, hi. Okay as they walk in the drunk teenage dudes. So quick Rome school shows up and another very stupid moment. He he he won't talk to her but he's texting her while he's sitting next to her in the car. He's, you know, got the knife against her knees texting her that he needs her to go into that store and pick up another videotape for his camera which is like the cameras we use to shoot the documentary J or somebody's camera. Yeah. So he sends her into there and he tells her look, just get the tape and come out here. Otherwise, I'm gonna kill everybody in there and it'll all be your fault. So, but the clerk, finally see that something is going on because she's looking very scared while she's trained to get this tape and Chroma. Scola has texted her a shitty message while she's in there. And he looks out and he sees this dude wearing a chrome scope. And he's, he gets a rifle. And he goes out and threatens chrome skull. But chrome scope grabs the gun. And he points it at the guy's head as the guy is trying to pull the trigger and the guy blows it off his own head off. Oh, keep in mind, all of this Gore is so gory and realistic looking that you're just like, oh, every time something happens. So inside one of the new dudes manages to call the police and reports the crime before locking the front door. And then the two dudes that have been trained to help her from before they finally show up. And as they let them in one of the two nude dudes gets his head chopped off. Yeah, there's a final standoff in the general store that has one of the guys getting tire sealant jammed into his head. So Chrome sko, like grabs him pushes his head on the table takes one of those tire ceiling things if you've got a flat, you know, can't fix a flat Oh, jams it in the guy's ear. And then he starts sealing the guy's head just as blown up a blow it up as he's going. And then his head explodes. Oh, man, I'm here to tell you. That cannot happen. Just no way that would happen. But I did like the effect. Someone else gets a knife in the chest and then we are finally treated to the video that actually shows us who the girl is. And you guys, I literally couldn't care less when I find out who she is. She's a nobody. She's a prostitute that he picked up to videotape and kill and then she somehow got away. I was like wow, why are you so interested in this girl? What are you reveal? You had no relationship to her prior to waking her up? So it's a really stupid movie. The acting is so so and the effects are great. I can find zero trivia. Yes, but I do have some reviews. Oh okay there Yeah. They do not necessarily support that 80% This is from Amazon one out of five stars. This guy says he starts his review with not cool and here's why. I love these kinds of this is exactly the kind of review you should give. It was the German version and not compatible with my blu ray disc player very upset should be more obvious than in fine print on Item Page. Feel very misled and now it's completely useless may as well be a paperweight one out of five stars. The filmmaker you gotta be going you know, Dude, fuck you. Why are you reviewing my movie with this? This is something that you should be revealing Amazon this guy says one out of five stars. Nicholas Shapiro. It's so bloody and disgusting. I thought it was like Friday the 13th or Halloween but stupid little throw of a knife spit I have humans like that. It not even near look real. Really great argument. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, you make a good point. Here being Binky chatter Hurriya. reviews this five out of five stars Simply Sublime horror. Gosh, I love this film. Lots of fresh ideas, a wonderful band of three protagonists that I was truly rooting for and a killer who is scary through and through right down to his lumbering walk. This should be a requirement for anybody who enjoys slasher movies. Very satisfying climax. If you like this movie, I would suggest checking out the sequel laid to rest to Chrome skull, which is maybe not quite as good but definitely takes the idea in a strong and novel direction. Wow. And then finally rose price gives it five out of five stars bought for my daughter meet this is the review that a filmmakers like Well, that makes up for that. So who's that's my movie. It's available on Tubi. So as the sequel, I started watching the sequel, Brian Austin Green, isn't it? Well, I continue. Oh, my God. I know a little bit of interesting trivia for please. So it's on if you listen to the behind behind the scenes, director's commentary or whatever. I do know what, what you probably don't want to but someone I know did and told me all about it. And the director is talking to his partner who is the star of the film. And she's being really weird to him the whole way through and he's like, are you going to like talk or are you going to like text all day? And she's like, well, there's just nothing to fuckin talk about is there shockingly, they did in fact split up not long after that commentary came out, she left him for the DP of the first chrome school film. Needless to say, the second film school film does not have the same DP nor does the star of the film survive past the first right. Little and she's cast. She's been cast and does not survive. Wow, so that was good juice. Tell me about it. Oh, then I guess that means it's me. Your turn. It is my turn. My slasher is a proto slasher and it is one odd duck from 1970 slash 73. And more on that later I chose Hollywood horror house I know you're there. Also known as savage intruder on VHS This is a movie that came out on VHS and actually never surfaced on home video via DVD until vinegar syndrome put it out on Blu ray and yes, it is a vinegar syndrome release threat. If you know what I mean and I think you do if you if you like videos, vinegar syndrome, no budget or box office info. As far as Rotten Tomatoes goes, no ratings from critics or audience. This movie stars Miriam Hopkins as Catherine Packard. She has 53 Acting credits and she was a big deal in Golden Age Hollywood. She's in the 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She got a Supporting Actress nomination Oscar nomination for Becky Sharp and she's also in a 1940s melodrama called the Empress which is one of the great 40s Hollywood melodramas. It also stars John David Garfield, who has 18 Acting credits including bit roles in the swimmer Frank periods the swimmer. Right, McKenna's gold opposite Gregory Peck a really cool war movie, and the golden voyages Sinbad. He is one of you know, he is a very white guy playing one of sin beds Arabic crew members as the Sinbad movies from the 50s 60s and 70s are want to do. But he was kind of more established himself as an editor or an assistant editor and he worked on movies like karate kid part two, all the right moves. So that was kind of where he hung his hat when acting didn't work out for him. Also starring in the movie as Gale Sondergaard, who is another veteran Hollywood star 55 Acting credits including Anthony adverse the Mark of Zorro from 1940 The Spider Woman in the Spider Woman Strikes Back, which are both Sherlock Holmes movies and she was the only female heavy in the universal era. Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies for what that's worth, and also starring is Virginia wing as Greta and she has 30 credits acting credits, including good guys were black Jekyll and Hyde together again, and a small part in Charlie Varick, which is a absolutely awesome Don Segal kind of action thriller, with Walter Matthau terrific movie. She's in there somewhere. The movie is written, CO produced and directed by Donald Wolf. This was his only writing, producing, directing, whatever credit and more on that later. So let's jump into the movie This is very interesting because this particular movie is it's a proto slasher. And it's also an example kind of a late period example of what was called psycho Biddy horror, or head exploitation, where you had usually with Golden Age Hollywood actors, actresses, usually who were in towards the end of their career or playing, you know, scary psychotic heartbeats, that sort of thing. The the big one on this is Whatever Happened to Baby Jane with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, also Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte with Olivia de Havilland ad. So Miriam Hopkins serves that function here. She's the faded Starlet. The movie sets up initially, it establishes a bunch of pre credit stock footage. It's lifted from a bunch of old new newsreels and singing in the rain, actually, and it's just like, footage of awful opulent Hollywood, you know, premieres of the era on the red carpet and so forth. So you get this you know, rollicking music, and you get this sense of big Hollywood grander and Footlights and everything else. And then there's a pretty quick cut to the Hollywood sign in 1970. Before they renovated it, it is rusty, it is dilapidated, the the the Pepe hot, gay Hollywood music drops and all you get is wind whistling through these corrugated pieces of metal that are barely hanging off this frame. So it's it's like heavy handed as as fuck, but it's actually pretty effective metaphor because it's like, it's like you have, you know, the shiny surface of tensile town and then you have how it's really actually this horrible desiccated thing. And then after all of these kind of unsparing shots of this ugly sign, the cameras settles on a disembodied head and a couple of dismembered hands right under the Hollywood sign. So next, we are in a dive bar in Hollywood. And there's a newscaster who handily mentions that another dismembered body was found in the Hollywood Hills. Imagine that, oh, and it appears to be a silly serial killer who is targeting this is interesting, middle aged women. So sure enough, there's this very tall, or very haggard, I should say, very haggard, middle aged woman, I would say middle aged, it's kind of a push as far as a description goes. Who's watching the newscast from a bar TV, and so she starts walking home, and she's tailed by this shadowy figure in a purple pimp hat, a black raincoat shades, and really white bell bottoms. So the shadowy figure when she gets to her house, he cooks her in the head with a lead pipe. And fortunately, there's a handy power outlet nearby so he can plug in his electric carving knife and begin sawing off her hands. And of course, she's like alcohol that she starts to wake up and her hands twitching, you see blood squirting out just a little bit as he's starting to saw with the electric carving knife. And then she wakes up, start screaming. And next thing you know, he brings a meat cleaver down and there's much splatter. It's actually pretty graphic for the time for 1970 movie. It's like whoa, so that was quite that's quite attention getting. And then next the the movie and the movie continues with a tour bus ride by a very by by a very familiar looking tour bus driver. More on him later, who is talking about starlet Catherine Packard and how she's been retired, but she's currently contributing to some of her favorite charities and enjoying her golden years. The next thing we know we see footage of Katherine Miriam Hopkins, flouncing about in her house in a very fancy white dress, addressing a whole house full of people. You hear all of this raucous party noise and clinking of glasses, and she's totally, totally being the belle of the ball. And then of course, there's a pan and we realize that she's alone, and she's delusional, and she's drunk as fuck. So she falls down the stairs and breaks her leg. So cut to the tour bus again. And somebody hops off the tour bus. And this is one of our other key characters. His name is Vic valance, and he's dressed in a headband and a paisley shirt. So you know, he's a hippie youth, and he's total trouble. And he sort of waltzes into this into Catherine's house to the property. And by the way, at this point, we can tell pretty clearly and the movie He's not making any secret of the fact that yes, Vic is the killer. He's the guy who was wielding the electric carving knife. And as the movie gradually progressed, as we see flashbacks, apparently, at some point, he was very mad at his mother who was apparently, you know, slept around a bit, did a lot of this in front of him as a kid. And so in retribution, he hacked her hand off. And so you see a lot of symbolism going back and forth between that hand being hacked off and other things being hacked when he goes to the killing thing. So anyway, she, she ends up Katherine ends up in a wheelchair, with a either crutches or a the crutches or a wheelchair, and she's in a cast. Her assistant or personal assistant, Leslie is very skeptical of this guy. And as time goes by, he starts to sort of charm his way into Katherine's favors. And including them starting to get a little busy, which is as unsettling as you might think it is with a 70 year old woman in a probably, you know, late 20s, early 30s. Guy. And there are definitely at this point in time, they're like, it's sort of like, also, at this point, becoming a low budget, sort of just really ratty and, and kind of tacky version of Sunset Boulevard. Because you have the faded starlet, you know, kind of coasting on her on her previous glories. And you have the kind of, you know, opportunist. And so you're thinking, you know, although it changes the dynamic, of course, because he's actually the killer, and it's not, you know, the so the woman is the the hag in the exploitation is not the killer. So, basically, the rest of the movie is a gradual procession of him getting Catherine, the starlet hooked back on alcohol, including injecting her heroin style with vodka. Apparently, it does, you know, at one point about half asking for a friend. Yeah, there you go. And you see, and what's really what's really kind of unsettling is you see him injecting her and then they have a closeup of her arm. And there's like, when, by the time they get around to establishing that she's taking all of these shots of alcohol from this guy. There's like multiple, like, punctures and track marks and stuff. It's pretty unsettling. And they're about third, they're probably I'd say three or four other kills in the movie that are also pretty effective too. But as time goes by, we also see he invites Catherine to a party. It's, of course, a hippie party, and she ends up getting really blasted drunk again. He imprisons her in her bedroom, her assistant gets really super skeptical, but nobody ever quite does anything in time to avoid being killed. There are a lot of choice moments in this movie, it's it really as not only is it a collision between like 30s and 40s, Golden Age, Hollywood and like the end of the 60s where you had like EZ rider and that sort of, you know, new guard coming in. It's also it is also a schism because it was filmed over the course of four years between hippie culture and cynical 70s nihilistic culture. It's like, it's like, you know, one minute the characters are walking around in very 60s, very Paisley outfits, and then in the next minute, it's like things get very, very, like, dark and melodramatic in a very 70s fashion and you can really feel the seams it's a very weird movie. I was absolutely captivated with it actually, because of that. It's, it's not a great movie. But it is absolutely fascinating to watch from the standpoint of, you know, kind of the it's leaning towards Sunset Boulevard, the whole exploitation thing. It's hard to convey, because nobody knows what the fuck Miriam Hopkins is now, but it's hard to convey. For a while she was like a seriously big deal in Hollywood. She was an Oscar nominee. She did movies for like some of the like most regarded Golden Age Hollywood directors. She worked opposite Betty Davis and Joan Crawford and all of these amazing amazing stars. But her temperature her temperature, maybe eventually your temperature her temper got the best of her and she like was really good at burning bridges. So she so she never became a big star. At least past the 40s. The other veteran in the movie of prominence is Gail Sondergaard who plays her assistant Leslie, and she had her career get flamed out for a much different and much sadder reason, which is that she and her producer husband, Joseph B. Berman, I think was his name were victims of the Hollywood blacklist, they were accused of being communists. And she, unlike Miriam Hopkins, who's like, absolutely devouring the fucking scenery, you know, there's one part the commentary on the blu ray is code done by an author named David del Val, who was a historian for Hollywood and he actually knew a lot of these people. He has a lot of great stories. And at one point, he says, you know, at some point, he's like, she's not getting direct. And he says, Yeah, you know, at certain times, there are certain actors who direct with a whip and a chair. She's one of these she is devouring the scenery, but Gale Sondergaard who's playing the assistants trying to keep it dignified and she's trying to give it a restrained performance and offer some contrast. Yeah, if if you're a fan of old Hollywood and you don't mind seeing it really, you know, seeing it's like decaying and wrinkled and flabby underbelly. This is this is worth definitely worth a look. Come on. This is this is sleazy as it sounds it is it is very very trashy. It is really super trashy. And and and it's and and as this Vic valance character continues to worm his way and he's completely loathsome on every level. But you can almost see how this totally isolated older woman who's like really susceptible to flattery can tumble down this guy's you know, even though you think everyone in the movie could see through him, they don't until it's too late most of the time. So, but a couple of trivia notes and a lot of this is tied into it being a very golden Hollywood reminiscent movie. It was filmed on location that the the state that she's at is gorgeous. It's opulent as hell, probably three or four storeys, huge grand staircases. It was actually the estate of silent movies starred Norma Talmadge, and it is still open to this day. You can it's been rented and used for Hollywood premiere parties. Like right up until you know today. It's it's actually a thriving kind of tourist attraction slash rental facility for your really rich people to do weddings and movie premieres. It was again shot between 1969 and 1973. And the director, writer producer Donald Wolf, actually owned a tour bus business and he financed the movie with the proceeds and that's why it was shot in pieces as it goes on. And speaking of final bowels, this isn't just Miriam Hopkins final movie she died like literally in 1970, less than a year after shooting it begun at this thing, the movie Yeah, she actually she and Gale Sondergaard both were really trying to get the movie distribution and they couldn't get in any sort of distribution at all until it kind of got farted out on home video under the title of savage intruder. But in addition to this being Miriam Hopkins last movie, it was also the last movie for the tour bus driver, who was played by Joe besser, aka curly Joe from the Three Stooges. Oh, wow. So he's the he's the tour bus driver and you literally is at the beginning of the movie in the end of the movie is the last time he ever appeared on screen. It's, it's also shot. It's actually quite beautifully shot by I think the the cinematographer name is John Merill. And he shot a boy and his dog from 1975 and a lot of genre stuff. The movie looks especially in the in the 2k 4k restoration. It looks gorgeous. I mean, it's it's actually really nicely shot. And I would imagine crammed on VHS. Nobody would have realized how nicely shot it was, but it's beautifully shot. He gets a lot of credit for it. Nutty, weird, weird movie. I highly enjoyed it and definitely, in a lot of ways a proto slasher because there are some gruesome gruesome kills in it, like really some gruesome kills. And one other quick note, I do want to give a shout out to Virginia wing who plays a small part in the movie. She doesn't have a damn thing to do. But she's very charismatic. She's very likeable and natural and adorable. And she is now at six years old, living in Portland, and has been working in the theater there extensively and was one of the first Asian women to appear in TV in print ads for cosmetics and shampoo in the early 60s. actually an interesting figure and definitely a lot definitely better than this movie deserves. so savage intruder, but what was the name? You watched it under Hollywood horror house. I like how you have to really pronounce that. Oh, just go Hollywood has and it's very, very different. And it's yeah, it's not I don't I'm not aware if it's streaming or not I don't wanna mentioned there's like a crappy rip of the VHS tape of savage intruder somewhere in the YouTube bells. But I saw the vinegar syndrome blu ray, which I purchased and it really is. It's a for me, I just I just was I'm a sucker for Golden Age Hollywood. I'm a sucker for Golden Age Hollywood in decay. So it's like absolutely fascinating for those standpoints. And the commentary by David del Val and David Makoto, who's a horror director he did like breeders and a bunch of other stuff. It's really funny because they're both basically, you know, they they're self described bitchy queens, and they have so much great juicy gossip about Miriam Hopkins and Gale Sondergaard. And the whole shooting schedule. Also, John David Garfield is the son of John Garfield, who is one of the great kind of cinema tough guys. Tragically, he also John Garfield senior was persecuted and hounded as a member of the Communist Party. He died at the age of 39 of heart failure. And then his son sadly passed away at the age of 51. From heart failure. So a kind of a tragic stretch going through that. So yeah, a fascinating artifact of a of a very transition time in Hollywood and a fascinating proto slasher. I love it. I can't wait to see it. Okay, so that means that Tony, can't thank you enough for joining us again on this show. Thank you for having me, you guys. You will not be here next week. Thanks. I have anything to say about God. Thanks, Kelly. But I do believe that means it's my pick for next week, right? I believe. So. Double check, you know, cuz we're gonna, since we had so much fun with the dates recently, or instigating a better calendar system. So I would think that Vanessa is up next. Oh, I'm up next. Are you sure? Okay. All right, I'm real pleased. Well, I'm going to go with something that feels kind of kind of timely for some of the stuff that we talked about today. But maybe it feels random. How about we do films that have a big focus on social media, like social social media almost plays a third wheel character in the US. So whether a character's obsessed with it is utilizing it, it just pops up to change the aspect of something that's happening in it. What do you guys think about that? Well, these we're gonna be talking about recent movies, some pretty new unless, you know, you want to continue your call a phone, social media. This is gonna suck, okay, I get five off the top of my head. There's tons of them out there. I've seen several I've liked maybe one or two, it will be played in the wheel. And I get to go back to being a listener. And I am I can hardly wait to hear what you guys can are going to be talking about. And I'm also very happy I'm not part of this. Alright, well, this is the part where I thank everybody for participating in the value for value model. As Eric said, we just got somebody buying us pieces as we were recording. That's right. So that's very cool. Thank you to everybody who's doing that who's liking sharing the posts, who shares when the show goes live, we really really appreciate it. Really appreciate all the stuff that Danny is doing behind the scenes that Ron is doing behind the scenes, so we have the best listeners really do. Yeah, really, really do. Okay, so that's it. We'll be back in one week. We're talking social media somehow. Oh, my God strange aeons radio was artisanal quality podcasting, handcrafted and all natural ingredients and edited to perfection by Eric Walker. Our blistery theme song is strange aeons Part One buy the band nightshade, and use the permission. Find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider dropping a positive review on Apple. And they meet this creepy dude with lots of toys and models in his house.