Strange Aeons Radio

204 HOW THE ONE WAS WEST!

December 01, 2022 Strange Aeons Radio Season 4 Episode 204
Strange Aeons Radio
204 HOW THE ONE WAS WEST!
Show Notes Transcript

204 HOW THE ONE WAS WEST!
Kelly's bromance with Carlos has reached new heights, and Eric is the only one who understood this episode's Horror-Western assignment. Also discussed: The Fabelmans, Something in the Dirt, the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and Wakanda Forever.

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Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sights to show you strange aeons. Welcome to strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there him. That's finesse over there. Hello, I'm Kelly. You guys last week. Are you familiar with Carlos? Wait, is that? Is that the guy who is like stock? No. Oh god. I'm wrong. Carlos. Which one real nice guy. Good friend to the show. has gone D media. Yes. Has his own podcast. Took our photos, all of that stuff. Oh, that guy. Carlos is a a man of many interests. He likes photography. Football, might like wine even more than I do. He likes f1 racing. And he told me that he gets up super early in the morning to watch these f1 races over in, you know, various parts of the world. And I told him, I'm coming down. Next time you do something like this, and oh, my god is a year a psychopath. But you just so happens. The last one is, you know, this Sunday. So I said, I'll be there. I woke up at 340 on a Sunday morning. Oh, my God got down to his place at about quarter to five. knocked on the door. He was like you psychopath. And he gave me a big hug. And he had already opened champagne. We had mimosas and I watched my first f1 race in Abu Dhabi. Wow. And you know, how we have said, this is true in life and in writing and in everything. We are attracted to people who can do their job well who are knowledgeable. And that's why everybody loves me so much. Carlos knows so much about the f1 Racing stuff that I was interested. I had the best time. It didn't hurt that we went through three bottles of champagne. Oh my god, he did turn to me at one point about 6am and said this is a first I'm like, What's that he was getting drunk at six in the morning. I was like, Well, I'm so happy that I was able to do this for my lifestyle, this momentous occasion. Wow, your bromance is so real. And so it's it's just visceral. It's just incredible. There's a lot of love there. I would say. Yeah, the thing you say about the people knowing their stuff and being passionate. Yeah. It's so that has seemed like that happened to me too. That's why the reason I like baseball is in my late 80s, late 80s, early 90s. I was dating a girl whose father was he made it to like, double A I think baseball, okay, and he had like third row tickets to the kingdom season tickets to the kingdom to watch the mariners. And he said from what I learned about baseball, my Sure. And he was so knowledgeable and so enthusiastic. It's like, your have completely changed the way I can watch this game. The difference? It makes sense. Yeah. My brother's like that about a lot of like, AR and movies. And yeah, so sitting in watching a film with him. If I thought it was the worst, most boring thing ever. If I'm watching it with him, it's just incredible. Yeah, that works. Awesome. Well, you started you're gonna start watching and getting up on your own and watching f1 race? No, because he's got the sport package that I mean, you know, whatever it takes for that channel to come in. He's also got the app that he pays monthly for so we had his iPad up and running. And we could see where all the cars were on this overhead, man. Wow. And then just the cars are so much crazier than I remember F ones being you know, it's been probably 40 years since I paid attention to what they look like. They look like spaceships now. Yeah, crazy. Cool. Oh, cool. I saw a ton of shit this last week. And I'm hoping that you guys saw a little bit of it too, because I want to get to a bunch of things. But when I bet you didn't go to see I went to the theater. Oh my god. And I saw the fable mints. Oh, I did not see the failed woman's you're familiar with what it is. Oh, Steven Spielberg's new movie about his childhood. Yeah. That's about what it looked like. I was I was just sitting there going, what is going on here? This is this is not a story and it felt very, very personal. And I'm sure that he in the editing room was watching this and, and getting all of these feelings. But as a film goer as a film watcher, you want that third act to be something special? Yeah, no third act at all. It's just a series of events that happens. And then really, one point Uh, he meets somebody very important to him and his career and all that stuff. And I was like, oh, geez, we got we must have another two hours of this movie or something. Making it a five hour movie. No, that was the end credits roll. And I thought to myself the art you all know his third act. Why lay? Yeah, he's I know you were here for beginning in Hollywood is so crazy, because he literally hung out on the universal lot, and found an empty office and just set up shop there until somebody finally said, Who are you? Yeah. And they liked his Moxie so much that they started giving him work and all that. We don't get that far in this movie. Holy shit. That's bananas. It starts with him as a young child, and his love for film and all of that stuff. But it doesn't get into him actually making a film or anything like that. And I thought, I was like, I could have lost all the stuff when he was eight. I didn't give a shit about any of that stuff in high school and everything was pretty interesting. But otherwise, I and then I come out and everybody's raving about this, you know, Oscar contender? Class, like how, why? We'll give it to him? Because we love Spielberg. Right. But it's, it was a real letdown. I can't believe you went to the theater to see that. Look. I know it's not. It's not cool. But I still love Spielberg. I think he's just an amazing director. And he was really instrumental in my childhood, you know? Yeah. And so I was really looking forward to this. Now didn't work for him. It's been a while since he had a really good film. I think like maybe what are the eight millimeter or what was that when he made with him? The kids. That was JJ Abrams, that he just felt like? Yeah, but the last couple ones. I've watched him like, it's feels like Spielberg's formulaic now. Which sucks, because he shouldn't be. I think his last one was Ready Player One, which was a gigantic turd sucked so bad, I think. Yeah, I think the last one I saw in theaters was a Bridge of Spies. And I was like, I fucking hate this movie. So yeah, I've kind of given up a little while ago. I don't know, maybe Road to Perdition. But that was good. Yeah, that was that was good. But yeah, it's really hard because you want it to be like magical, like those movies from the 80s, where he just tapped into some kind of wonderful, and now it's just not, I don't know, I feel like it's not there anymore. Say this. There are some really nice performances. And there were some scenes that I thought were really, really strong and little tidbits, you know, nuggets of wisdom that get passed along in there. But for you know, two hour and 40 minute film, I was just really bummed quite honestly. I mean, I literally came out of the theater going. I don't know if I liked this movie. Interesting, because and then last year, we had Belfast, which was kind of brought on as childhood right on screen, man. All these all these aging. creatives are starting to tell their story. Yeah, maybe they are not the best person to tell their story. I don't think they are. I don't think they are. I think it's really hard to describe your own life. That's a very different skill set than describing a fairy tale. Well, I also went to the theater and watch something that I don't know that you guys would have seen yet. knives out Glass Onion. Yeah, like to Yeah, but does it how's it? How's it as a follow up to live sounds fucking incredible. Oh my God, it was so good. So fucking good. Like, just but does it need to be seen on the big screen? I know it hits Netflix. Netflix in like a week. It has a one week theater run. And then it's going straight on to Netflix. I don't know. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing it with a crowd. It was a very packed theater. I will say it was the most packed one. I've been to through this whole, you know, last three years. And everyone was just, you know, roiling and rumbling and laughing and Todd Lake trying to figure it out. And just It was a lovely experience because of that. It's uh, I'm definitely interested. Yeah, the only reason I pick fable omens over that was because the Netflix deal? Yeah, yeah, I would just say that he's, I am forgetting the name of the director. But he's becoming Johnson. Brian. Yeah, Ron Johnson. He's becoming tighter and better with every film. Like every single one like is just getting better and it's like fuck do you you're like learning you're actually learning and implementing the things you learned. So definitely check that out when it when it shows up on Netflix, though, does Netflix have like a big old deal to do a bunch of those films? Yeah, there's at least one more. I think it's a larger that it might well might be two more. I think it's just one More. And the thing is, though, that between Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson, they got $100 million out of that deal. The tour a couple movies of the $400 million deal for two movies. Yep. Well, that's one Marvel movie. I saw one that definitely definitely definitely did not have that budget. Something in the dirt. Oh, the new one or two. Benson and Moorhead right. Oh, I watched it. I saw this down at the Lovecraft Film Festival. Oh, it was it. I could see why it was down there. I was like, wow, that's been very memorable. Well, I'll tell you I walked out of there kind of liking it but not understanding why it was there at the festival. Probably just because it's it could be interpreted as esoteric, so esoteric. It could have some other worldly things going on. Or it might not have any at all right. I enjoyed it. I thought it was really interesting movie. Kind of like pie or mind walk where you're just like, I don't entirely know what's going on here. And I don't care. is definitely one that will need to be rewatched. Yeah. What did you see this on? Amazon or something? Just a rental? Okay. I remember liking it. Nobody liked it down there. Oh, really? Yeah. And I came out, saying Oh, I thought that was pretty good. You know, for a pandemic movie is clearly a pandemic movie. Two actors in a room basically. It's them. Yeah, it's the two directors are the main are the people in the movie. Are these the guys who did the like time journalists and chronic? Yeah, I know. You're not a big fan. I mean, I liked that one that I talked about with the mermaid mermaid person? No, with the spring. I like spring. That was fun. Yeah, I've enjoyed all their films. I think they've just fascinating and interesting. They may not all work perfectly, but I think the ideas behind them and what they're setting out there is not particularly common in filmmaking right now. Are people are taking chances on doing shit that their audience may not understand at all. Or make so completely misinterpret that it's fun for them to go. Wow, that's what you got out of my movie. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, quick question. Did you guys see the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special? Oh, oh, well, I guess that's what I'm talking about that I was hoping one of you will talk about. It is a goddamn delight. What are you waiting for? I cried at the end. I laughed through the entire thing. I was just, and I really love this whole thing of a 40 minute special. Yeah, you know, where we'll by night is the coolest thing Marvel has done as long time. And this is the most fun and heartwarming thing. So on Disney plus really great, fantastic music, Kevin Bacon as often as awesome. Everybody was awesome, really. And you'll end up just loving the team of Drax and Mantis now that's going to be your your favorites in The Guardian stuff. Very cool. That's awesome. Well, I watched a different Marvel piece, which was Black Panther Wakanda forever. I mean, it's a very long movie. And about half of it could be cut out. They're doing they're spending an awful lot of the movie setting up other things in the Marvel Universe. So they're like, Oh, hey, like, remember that agent from this thing? He's here for some reason. Don't worry about it. And remember, like, wow, mech and tech and yeah, this that chick who is going to be an iron heart. She's here now to wow. Isn't she cool? And there's like a core story about you know, loss and about vengeance and about. There's some really interesting, beautiful stuff in there. There's a lot of love being give to Chadwick Boseman. They make some very good decisions about how to handle the actor's passing and the his character's evolution. But man, there's so much shit in that film, too. It makes it very difficult to watch. I understand that they're trying to do right by Chadwick. And the film was such a cultural touchstone. Yeah. They've really done themselves a disservice by not being okay with recasting him and recasting everybody. You know, they killed Tony Stark. That's a that's a big deal in the Marvel Universe. And, and not recasting him as just a different new actor is is a problem. Now it's going to be I mean, all of these people will just have Have the next generation version of right? But that's not what's happening in the comic books. And I understand it's a completely different audience. You're, you're selling these things to the, you know, whatever the Ironman readership is, I think at its height was probably the, I don't know, 500,000 units sold every month. When you've got millions of people who know Iron Man only from the movie, it makes sense that you would push your, your stuff towards those viewers instead of the comic book viewers. But what happens when you know, when an actor dies or something like that doesn't fit into what you were hoping to do with that character story? I? I don't know. It's it's tough because I feel like they somehow wrote themselves into a weird corner as well with the Black Panther. Because while you're watching the movie, you're thinking, Okay, who are they going to select to be the next one, and you kind of get some clues from the trailers, but you're watching, you're watching, you're going oh, what if it's this person? That would be cool. Oh, what if it's that person? That would be cool. And when it's not, it's like, why do we have to sit with this person being for the next amount of time? It makes it really difficult not to say that they totally messed up. I don't think they did, but is just a very weird, squishy area. I don't know. I do understand. Like, it is such a cultural phenomenon, especially in the black community. And I swear every black person in the Bellevue area was in my screening, and it was wonderful. All four of them. Yes, exactly. They all were right, right in there. And people were having, you know, big, emotional, wonderful moments with the film and responding to it. And these really, I mean, there was a lot of crying in as as the film was going on, and I think that that was really powerful. But at the same time, I wish they'd spent more time on that story, and not spend so much time trying to build up the rest of the universe. Okay, but we're seeing still um, whoa, how about the compared to the Eternals or oh my god that Yeah, I mean, I guess it's yes, it's it's worth it's worth seeing. They're really cool little moments in it much like what the fable means right? There's really cool little pieces in there that you're like fuck that is awesome. And a lot that you're like, why am I looking at this right now? Why are we here? Who are you? Why do we care about you? Why are you doing this? Why are the why is this happened? Why are we in this country now? It's it's hard I can't necessarily straight up recommend it because I'm not gonna watch it a second time but other people out there might be really interested to see where this story goes. So I'll just keep on with the tiny little movies where you guys are talking about the blockbuster things Hey, I only have so much time in a week or anyone came across shutter slash back I saw the title but I know nothing about it. This film filmmaker who I want to see another movie or two from because it's good the idea is kind of interesting. In that it's vaguely invasion it's just animals though invasion body snatcher or the thing but no, no, it does jump to people to but it's not explained at all. I think it's an A they think they say it's aliens or something at some point, but this is not the one with the Native American girls fighting. Oh, it is that one okay, I thought it was like in the description it says they have to fight off an alien invasion. No does it okay, maybe I didn't read it. I just kept it big. Those big things on the top. I haven't seen that one yet play well, I mean, if you can figure that out through the movie then that's that's definitely a storytelling issue. It's definitely in the well i think i i remember when they tell it but and it's sort of part of the end kind of glossing over it. But the the rough part about it is the the cast they've got for the first 20 minutes or so is so charming and so good. And so much fun to watch on screen. And then it kind of goes away some I think when they hit the the either maybe they're doing effects shots are the ones where they're almost all teens. And when they started to get scared or battle certain ways between each other the performances lowered significantly but the story is fun. And the directing is good. The movement is good. Everything that happens in the movie is moves at a good solid pace. worth seeing I just wished that really the first five minutes are gone. Wow, this might be one of my discoveries of the year of just stumbling on and watching Liana like the Advent Calendar last year or something like that. But in the end that's not but it's still pretty good. And I hope the people making it get to do some more films because there's there's some neat, neat filmmaking being done. Nice. I will check that one out. Let's take a break but before we do that I just wanted to mention that Albert Pune who we've talked about on this show many many times director of doorman and Cyborg and Nemesis and all that stuff just passed away the other day yesterday. He's had multiple sclerosis for years and dementia. And I just wanted to do a little shout out because we've talked about so many of his films on this so rest in peace, Albert. We will take a break we'll be right back and we are talking or westerns. I just love the old west when things are wild and wooly and turtles, turtles, crazy cowboys dies, it's rough and tough as they come. So it's got rapid Scout things out Bandito busted Mike Owens bashes the bad guys and chiefly leader in the turtle tribe is a real man's turtle. Sure. I just love the Wild West horse. I don't like it too. It takes a good rider to handle them rocking horses. Hello, let's see who's called the strange aeons radio hotline. I've got to say that Western horror or horror Westerns has got to be one of the most exciting topics we've heard in a while. Thank you, Vanessa, for that. Thank God, we're gonna have another ninja November. And I really can't. I guess you can't use any of the words that I would use while I'm yelling at the podcast player. But uh, thank you very much. Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving. And feel free to use this on the air later. If you'd like to call the strange aeons radio hotline, dial 253-237-4266. And we have returned. Thanks, Danny, for everybody for continuing to complain about ninja November it was a year ago. Get over it. Never thought of again. What is the little teddy bear with his little Hi? Yeah. Very good. Very good. Vanessa, this was your sub genre. It was yes. So I hold on before you get into this. I also love once again that you chose something had nothing in mind for it. And were complaining about it. Complaining. I don't remember this at all. I think you're rewriting history. I think I've been very strict about westerns this whole time. Let's hear it. Oh, oh, Eric. God bless you. Let me put 10 minutes on the clock. She's Louise. Okay. All right. So I did choose westerns. Mostly because like there are a lot of incredible horror Westerns out there. And I really wanted to dig into that a little bit. So I chose the 1990 film termers. Perfection, a scorched outpost in the middle of nowhere. Close I'm leaving this place right now. Close maybe that's why Val and Earl decided to leave town names they just picked the wrong day to do it could be doing better snake give you boys $5 That's how they get you there under the ground. Those things but where do they come from? I vote for opsbase No way these are local. He's either hated Brack force. No Richter scale can measure it. No scientist can explain it. They're under the ground. You didn't get penetration either with the Alpha gun, Ron Ron, and no one knows what to call it. Mega worms are suckers or, or suck boys. And this valley is just one lone smorgasbord. Now, it's up to Val and Earl to save the world as one big mother. Oh Dad made you and they know just what to do. Flip for it down. Kevin Bacon fretboard tremors which I know is kind of one of those ones that everyone's seen. So, you know, excuse me for that, but I have never seen it. So I was a little surprised this falls into the Western category. Um, I you know, it has some elements of Western, it was showing up on a lot of lists for horror westerns, which is why I went with it. I also while watching it was a little like, I don't know if this counts, but it's too late. So it takes place in a Western. It's like a small I mean, there's like a boardwalk in that town. And you know, there's a lot of cowboy hats so it's in the West. So this film came out in 1990 Rotten Tomatoes score of 88% from critics and 75% from the audience budget of 10 million in a box office of 16 point 7 million it was considered a failure. directed and written by Ron Underwood who did such great city slickers heart and souls. Mighty Joe, that was a gorilla. Mighty Joe Young. He's still doing a lot of stuff today including TV TV stuff, including evil once upon a time, agents shield and Fear the Walking Dead, written by him as well as SS Wilson and Brenton bottom Baddeck who are sort of a writing team, they wrote Wild Wild West together short circuit Batteries not included and goes, Dad. moving, moving swiftly along, starring a lot of big, exciting names. In fact, I'm only listing about half of the people here. Kevin Bacon, who has been in everything 105 credits including Friday the 13th, Footloose Hollow Man, which we have talked about on the show, and now a lot of TV shows, including the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special who will also be in the film. I know it's sorry, I mean, like out now kind of as of late just a day or two ago. He's also in toxic he will be in Toxic Avenger and Beverly Hills Cop Axel Foley. Fred Ward is the co star in this 89 credits including shortcuts Chain Reaction Escape from Alcatraz Naked Gun 33 And a third and Joe Dirt is one of those guys that you know when you see in Victor 138 credits including Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness. Last Emperor and three ninjas, unfortunately died in 2001. And the great Reba McIntyre, the queen of country herself. In Carter plays the love interest. She was in 109 episodes of As the World Turns a bunch of TV movies and nothing else. And Michael Gross who has been in 125 things, but the most important of which is every single film about tremors past this one, where he became becomes the star for some reason. Because he said yes, because he said yes, because he was willing to come back and literally no one else is I'm not going to I'm not going to watch any of those I have to admit not interested. The plot, Valentine and Earl are running an odd jobs business together where they go around the town of perfection helping people out for a few bucks. They empty septic tanks dispose of garbage put up posts, for the total of 14 residents in this small town and this kind of long, isolated Sandy dirty Valley. There are a lot of really fun characters that we meet right off the bat because of this, including the Asian grocery store owner who's super happy and excited to make a quick buck. The Doctor and his wife who are sort of building their dream home out in the middle of nowhere. There's two survivalists there's a ceramicist with her kids. And there's some annoying boy who might be her son. I'm not sure he's just irritating in there all the time. You really want him to die constantly. Valentine is thrilled to hear that the grad student who is doing Archaea archaeological surveys out in the on the field will be replaced with the hot chick maybe so he rushes out to see who this who this amazing bombshell might be only to discover that she's hideous. Because she has some skin sunscreen on her nose and she's wearing baggy clothing gross. I know it's not blonde with world famous movie a few times. Yes, yes. She's not blonde. It's true. I think our legs are pretty good I will say but you don't really know that with the the shorts. The grad student asks them if there's been blasting or work done because there lots of really strange numbers happening. And of course, things in the town start to get weird they find a man died up on electric pole who died of dehydration and he stopped there for like three days. Didn't want to get down for some reason. Another guy is slaughtered along with his sheep. There was a road out It's down due to basically two road workers were working on it and something from underneath, got them and made a big avalanche. Now, no one can leave the town, the wires are down, no one can call out. And they're trying to figure out what's happening when they discover giant worm things that are trying to eat them graboids graboids, which they never want to say in this entire film. It is not they do spend a lot of time talking about how they should name them. And it's weird that they don't have a name and they could name them themselves because no one else has named them before but do not have a name. Valentine and Earl sort of become the de facto leaders being the only ones dumb enough to keep stumbling into the situations where they have to deal with these things. And taking them head on. They managed to accidentally kill the first one and then get the idea behind them that maybe they should work with the town, which is now under threat to try and either escape from or attack the worms. Will any of the town survive? Will Kevin Bacon discover that the female grad student is actually super hot? Well, the least interesting character become the head of the next six sequels. Who's to say stay tuned. Um it's, it's a little zany, a little a little more zany than something that I would typically go for, which is why I have not seen it. But it does have truly super fun characters. The fact that we're being introduced to all of them through the odd job, guys, is a great way to introduce people in this town, that by the virtue of the fact you're going from place to place to place, the characters that are really likable, and it becomes really tough when they randomly die. Because you're like, Oh, the doctor and his lady are building their dream home and they're a retired couple, and they're really lovey towards each other. And then they're just gone. The monster creature, the practical Of course, as usual, and whenever you do practical, I'm just in love with it. It's just It looks so fun and cool and enormous. They do a great job. I think it sells the entire film. And I have to say just coming from a small town myself, I really appreciate the way that they portray a small town life. music sucks. really sucks, guys. I hate it. And you need to stop. It's a playful, stupid harmonica driven tune. And it's awful. But I think that really really fun. We're just I do not remember the music at all. None. My god it's so zine. Probably the only thing that ties it in as a Western probably there's room here. I can't do it. It's so awful. Imagine a harmonica right a whimsical harmonica on your their trivia So, SS Wilson said that he got the idea for the film when he was working in the US Navy in the California desert while resting on a rock which by the way you're doing it wrong. Resting on a rock, he imagined what might be like if something underground kept him from getting off the rock. The creature for tremors was designed by Alma mo grenaded dynamics the full scale Graboid scene after being dug up by Val was cast and lightweight foam. It was placed in the trench and buried and dug up again to achieve the desired use effect. Tremors was set for a November 1989 release but the MPAA gave it an R rating for language creators decided at the last minute to make it more commercially viable. So took out over 20 uses of the word fuck and we're either cut or redubbed examples can you fly you sucker and we killed that mother humper but of course this push the phone back and between that and just really bad marketing. It did not do great Kevin Bacon originally resented being in tremors only agreeing to do it because he needed money for a new marriage an upcoming newborn child when the film was not financially successful. Bacon feared his career was over and in the following years refused to acknowledge the film's existence, even calling it the worst thing I ever did. Wow. Yeah. However, bacon would eventually come around to tremors calling the film to be the single most fun time I've ever had while making a movie in my entire career. And in a later interview, he said, when I was making tremors, I was very depressed and at a low point in my life, and I kind of blamed termers for that. I was bitter against it. I thought it was a career killer. I never watched my movies more than once. And this one he saw dozens of times, he says is one of my favorite films of all time. Oh, yeah, that's cool. And although it was a failure, tremors did go on to have a huge smash hit in the video market. tripled its original box office gross with VHS sales and rentals. Wow. It was huge. When I was working at Suncoast massively popular film. First of all, no, I'm saying wow, I think you were done right. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Whoa, whoa. Did it And while I think Vanessa one this one already good I didn't see this movie until maybe five years ago. Only because you kept telling me I should watch it Eric and I watched it and I was I thought it was a blast. Yeah, it's really it's really fun. It's really fun. I the one anecdote I had from it was, you know, when they go round, and they kill that one, grab Graboid. And they're like, Yeah, we did it. Oh, yeah. And everyone gets like a little special shot. And that one kid is like, oh, and he's pumping his like fists in the air. So, anytime we did something, we're good at work at indieflix My manager would send that out to so I've seen it many times. And we're always like, no, Brad. That was my only context. Nice. Okay, I'm gonna go next and put in 10 minutes on the board. Here we go. I'll just tell you guys right now I chose poorly. No. I thought that I would give the 1998 classic from John Carpenter a rewatch vampires have you ever seen a vampire? Forget whatever you've seen in the movies. Do think everybody inside with cheesy your trash accent right? They don't turn into bats. Crosses don't work. If you want to kill one, you drive a wooden stake right to his heart. We think we got a nest inside this place. chances are we'll find the master in here somewhere. I know your parents were bitten by vampires and you were raised by the church to be its master Slayer. No one knows vampires better than he does. My baby but he met his match when he met the master who started it all. He was a priest. It's the first known case of Emperor isn't the first and most powerful you are the only one who faced survived. Master vampire has a telepathic link in his victims. You're gonna help us find the grass 600 years VALIC is wanting to live in the day like a master vampire able to walk in the sun unstoppable figures net that blood drinking one of the world has ever known fan to kill some vampires. James Woods from the master of terror gums a new breed of Evil John Carpenter's vampires never told me they could do that I didn't do that oh wow. Good work. I suffered through this in the theater. I think you did. Yes, I did. I remember walking out of a company that was really bad and I thought maybe I need to give it another try. So that you guys don't budget of 20 million box office have about 20 million worth Yeah, we should always you know we always say this and a lot of people don't understand just because your your budget was 20 million and your box office was 20 million you didn't make your money back because that doesn't count the 10 million they put into your marketing this Yeah, you know, whatever. It's almost always half the budget again to market it. So Rotten Tomatoes critics give this 42% And the audience pretty much agrees with them. 47% Oh, well. Directed by John Carpenter. He is directed Halloween the fog the thing Christine Star Man Big Trouble in Little China Prince of Darkness in the mouth of madness. A pretty unimpeachable record up until about this movie and escape from LA which was the movie right before this and then it just all falls apart for Him. It was written by Don Jacoby. He wrote blue thunder, lifeforce Invaders from Mars arachnophobia and also credited to John Stapley, who wrote the source novel which is very, very good, much, much better than this film. It stars James Woods 143 credits including Videodrome best seller Catseye and an amazing cameo in Scary Movie too, which is the only reason you have to watch that movie. Yeah. Daniel Baldwin, who has 133 credits, he was in Mulholland Falls trees lounge, love kills. And Cheryl Lee, who was in 68 credits Wild at Heart 22 episodes of La doctors, but we'll always be known as Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. Okay, so we are introduced to Jack Crowe and his group of vampire hunters and daring daylight raid on a vampire nest and an abandoned house in New Mexico. They work very well as a team they break in, they stick The Vamps with these gigantic stakes that are hooked to winches on vehicles that drag them out of the house and into the sunlight where they all spectacularly explode. It's all pretty fun, you get a good glimpse of who all these characters are. We also find out that this team of vampire hunters is Vatican sponsored. And at the end of all of this, we find out that Jack is upset that they didn't find a particular vampire that he is obviously searching specifically for. Still, the team calls it a successful raid and they all pretty. They'll party it up at a hotel that night with lots of booze and prostitutes and drugs and shit. And even their Vatican assigned priest who was part of their team, he's having a great time and drinking with them and all of that stuff. And just as things are getting really fun, Master vampire named Valak arrives and he is clearly who Jack has been searching for. So VALIC shows up and literally kills everyone at the party spectacularly. There's all sorts of guns blazing and all that and he's putting his hand through people's chest and pulling out their beating hearts and shit like that. He feels everyone except for Jack and his right hand man, Tony Montoya. And they bet they managed to barely escape with one of the prostitutes Katrina, who had just been bitten by VALIC. So we get a little bit of Alex history here. He was a disgraced priest a couple 1000 years ago who led a rebellion against the Church, which led to his execution and him becoming the very first vampire. Not sure that's how it works. But interesting. Yeah, he's already killed another group of vampire hunters in Germany. So the Vatican has got a real hard on for wiping him out. And he's also on a quest for this magical cross that will allow vampires to walk in sunlight, which is the exact same basic premise for the first blade movie which came out right about this time also. And then the movie, the forsaken. I don't know if you guys saw that. I kind of liked that one. Yeah. And an episode of Buffy at least. Right, right. It's honestly my least favorite trope in vampire movies. Seize the night, I say and forget about walking around in the daytime. It's bullshit anyway. So anyway, Jackie Montoya are using Katrina to kind of keep tabs on VALIC because since she was bitten, but hasn't transformed yet, she knows what he's thinking and doing, which is another stupid trope. I hate so this movie has zero imagination. After the team's priest was murdered by Valak, CRO is given a new priests by the Vatican and they start formulating a plan to take VALIC down. I'm gonna do my best Vanessa here, will it work? Most assuredly not. Montoya fall in love, even though she's turning into a blood sucking freak and he has sworn to destroy her. Most likely yes. Will Jack Crow and VALIC finally face each other in a duel to the death in broad daylight because the magical Cross was found. I will reveal that but it seems like a strangely specific thing for me to bring up if it didn't happen. This movie breaks the cardinal rule of horror flicks, or at least my cardinal rule, which is it can be stupid. It can have really bad acting and even bad effects, but it cannot be boring. And God this movie is a snore fest. It bills itself as a vampire Western, but it would have done better to take some of the western genre specific angles and camerawork and maybe apply it to this story. It doesn't none of this which is surprising because carpenter famously wanted to make a Western and this was the film that he decided to do that with. The movie takes place in New Mexico and has a generic rock Western score, I guess. And maybe that's their tie to it being a Western because there's dust and Western rockin it. I don't know. It also has a climax that takes place as a montage over about 30 seconds and feels very much like they just ran out of money and needed to wrap up the movie. It's it's like the shockingly bad scene of of the Vampires being attacked by Crowe and his priest. But it's all done as a montage. Weird. It's so weird and out of place. Everybody knows montage happens in the second act. That's how this stuff works. You guys. Get a little trivia on this film. This film is the one that convinced John Carpenter to stay in directing. Well, feeling burnt out after a string of critical and financial failures. John Carpenter had lost his love for filmmaking, and was heavily considered going into retirement following the failure of escape from LA because in his words, it stopped being fun. However, when Carpenter was offered the job for vampires, he was intrigued by the promise of making a horror Western hybrid, something he had wanted to do since the 70s. He made a deal with himself. Make one more movie and if it's still isn't fun retire. Carpenter would later go on to heavily enjoy his time on directing vampires. Wow. Good for him, I guess. You know what, it's not fun. People gave me $20 million to make a movie and I couldn't make it work ever fuck off with your fun stuff. It's called the job. John Stickley, the author of the original novel like the film, but said it contained much of his dialogue and none of his plot. Russell Mulcahy, who directed Highlander and Razorback was originally attached to direct with Dolph Lundgren in the jack row role, and William William Defoe as well. Be interesting when that fell apart, Carpenter was approached and given a $60 million budget that was slashed to $20 million at the last minute, which maybe explains everything in this movie. Wow. Yeah. So Bruce Campbell was carpenters first choice to play Montoya. The film opened at number one, but drafted number eight in its second week, it grossed $20 million in the United States on a $20 million budget. of the worldwide numbers are not official carpenter stated The film was a massive success overseas, particularly in Japan, and pulled in well over its $20 million budget. It later went on to pull in a further $42 million on home video rental and purchase sales. And vampires was carpenters only financial, financially successful film of the 90s the last financially successful film that John Carpenter has directed Yeah, was the Ouch, yeah. But if he does, Deadspace it's gonna be awesome. No, it will not. It could be awesome. I will not go for the optimism. What the hell? I love Carpenter, he's, he's lost his love for the industry. So he's not going to be able to do anything good anymore. He is definitely a crotchety old man. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because if you're if you're only in it for the money, then you don't have that drive to make something that's going to be better than whatever money you've been given. Yeah. Which is why his music is obviously you know, it's his passion. Yeah. And he's just loving life with that. Yeah. Do I let the time run out? Or do I just take the wind for getting it under and start up for a year? How much time is left? Like a minute? Oh, that didn't work. Last time. You said that. It went off like immediately. We can reset. I'm just gonna say out one by one. We all win. We all well, let's see. How does Eric let's see. I'm putting him in his on the board. Kaboom, go. All righty. So I got another horror Western for the silent cutthroats nine from 1972. This film acclaimed by critics as the most violent motion picture ever portrayed on the screen. throats nine notorious gang bent on the slaughter of human souls for a small fortune in gold, and even more precious their freedom. ruthless men fighting for their lives. They were desperate criminals chained together. Driven by a vengeful sergeant. They feared nothing. They were destined to die shackled, like animals. cutthroats nine the story of a young girl trapped amidst the lust and greed of vicious killers cutthroats nine. Roy Hill as her lover MF coin, one girl, nine men that would stop at nothing to get what they want. starring Robert Hunter as the benchmark Sergeant Brown. Adventure and violence that will rip your heart out Approach nine. Violence is an area of life it's the one movie that you must not see alone. What you see here is only a sample of what is in store for you in cutthroats nine for your protection you will be given the Terror Mask free at the entrance we urge you to use it if the violence is more than you can stand oh wait a second is this an actual Western then? Yes, I'm calling this episode How the West Was one oh any since you were the only one who actually got the rain Okay, definitely the Western this was Oh 1932 This is another one I found that has zero critics ratings. Even one Oh no 53 from the audience though crowd no idea what the budget is not high but no idea what the box office was also probably not high. But hey, you know, run it ran a nice little 90 minutes. So I appreciate that. Directed by walking Luis Romero machete. Are those names. He's also well known for I don't forgive I kill. dollars for a fast gun. Zorro, the Avenger and seven hours of gunfire. Wow. So he is kind of the during the period of the Italian, Clint Eastwood Spanish spaghetti. Westerns. Spain was doing a similar thing. And he is a little bit more Spanish but these are this particular one I believe is the Spanish one. Oh, I gotta see, I don't forgive I kill what a great title. Seven hours of shooting also sounds great. Most of the movie runs seven hours. Then last grade. He also wrote it. He also wrote the Black Wolf and Revenge of the Black Wolf and Tarzan in the golden grotto. Plus, he also directed wrote most of what he directed. There's second writer on this one Santiago Mikado who's 62 writing credits including lots of Spanish TV under siege. No, no, no, that one Curse of the Black Cat and all the colors of the dark which is a pretty damn good yellow. So he's got a nice pedigree there. starring Robert hunter from beast in space, the cynic, the rat and the fist. White Fang and the gold diggers mean Frank and crazy Tony. Yeah, to find time in the 70s making movies. Emma Cohen, who's in the hidden the dumbfounded King, another fairly strong Spanish film called the cannibal man. And she also directed eight short films. Wow. Alberto Del vez. From the demons. The erotic writes of Frankenstein, and daughter of Dracula and Tonio Erazo who can kill a child. I believe you did. I did that one. Yeah. Flower of holiness. Sure. Anyway, so when we start with an introduction to the cast, it's fairly straightforward. It's a group of criminals being transported in a carriage being watched over by soldiers as they go through the backwoods in the winter. So you know, fun times ahead for all the convince Can you guess how many of them are cutthroats now Oh. But well, there's actually seven of them and then the two others that join in later, but they're listed as seven sadistic murderers prisoners survive that into the woods with a horse without a horse or a wagon? Yeah. There's the bandits gang gets attacked by like two people who somehow managed to intimidate all the guards and do stuff with by using echoes in the area around them to make it sound like there's a lot of people there. And somehow none of them figure out that that the same thing that guy just said, echoed everywhere. They think they have gold, but there is no gold in this particular transport apparently, so they get all pissed off and cranky and send the coach riding away with the horses dragging it and no people in it. And that's how our plot begins of the nine. Because there's the seven criminals the guy who's driving the car and his daughter, okay. Gee, early 70s movies woman's thrown into a situation she doesn't need to be and I wonder why she's there. With a bunch of criminals raping time, the day I was way off on this. You actually both correct. Oh, the it has this very strange thing throughout The movie where it hits a freeze frame and then shows the past like when you first see the driver and the daughter at freeze frames and goes back to him coming back from the war as the Civil War as a soldier and her greeting him and they're all happy and all that kind of stuff and forward into the back to the regular time and they're trudging through the snow is just trying to survive there's a prisoner gets injured so they carry him which is weird because he thinks this group would just kind of leave them behind which is what most of them want to do but the guy and the courage they know you carry them you hurt this guy you're gonna carry and then they end up siding to kill him so he makes him carry the dead corpse Lee this film has a few rough scenes with horses be warned. The plot plot defense when he find out that one of these seven killed the man's wife. Um, and so he's got to figure out that and of course the they trudge along and find a cabin and then horrible things happen to the daughter, and then they trudge along more through the snow little spoiler for your see it's a sort of in the middle of the movie, but the chains are actually the goal. Which is why they're all chained together. Which is why the one guy who knows the chains are gold makes them carry the dead guy. Seems like that would be very heavy chain. Yes, very heavy and very soft. So when they discover their gold, they can't get them off until they find a train to run over. No reason you can bite gold. So a few hard hits from rocks here that for you. But you know, short in the movie great. Like, I can guarantee you even not even having not seen the Hateful Eight. Tarantino has seen this film. This is such a Tarantino movie. It's all bleak and dark. People are assholes. Women are treated like shit. It's all very, very good to see. You haven't seen The Hateful Eight now. Sorry. The only one of his films I haven't seen. Wow. I looked at it's like, three fucking hours off. I feel like I love that about you. But it's an OK film. You should watch it. Okay. It's an OK film. You really should watch it. Kurt Russell. Oh, that's true. That does help. Walton Goggins? Yeah. Good to see that one. No. Yeah, it's just one of those you know, slips by to go like 10 years later. You never Oh, man. They're completely missed. But there's no way he hasn't seen. Let's see notes. Trivia tagline, A Nightmare on the loose. Possibly the most violent Euro Western ever made, is brutal. It is really, really violent. It's not straight up horror, but it falls into that a lot of people call it horror Western because of the violence. It's apparently was all added by the American distributor. Oh, interesting. So the original guy did not want the heavy violence. And you can you can see that it was probably added in later because almost all of the heavy violence is very close up. So you're seeing like just the clothes the person was wearing or utterly destroyed head that doesn't look like anybody. Like, Oh, wow. It's I mean, it's early 70s blood. It's not Herschel Gordon Lewis level bad but it's not too many steps above that. But some of the D gutting is kind of gross and well done. But yeah, it's the ugly horror. So you know, maybe it's not just one, I don't know. But it generally gets tagged as a horror Western because of that. The other end there is kind of a zombie scene. The scores actually pretty good by Carmelo Carmelo Fernando because our burnout Allah and the movie movies English poster says, due to the violent scenes no one will be admitted without a Terror Mask is provided for your venue benefit, please use available free at the box office. Okay, I gotta look up and see Yeah, anybody's got this. Yeah. And it is basically like, postcard size image of the movie, the the title and like a stick and you hold it above your head. Like, okay, that's actually really awesome. The core is prevalent. all I got left was as I'm watching it, thinking it looked like Tarantino and then I researched into it. And many people say this is an influence for hatefully for Tarantino, interesting. Wow. I've never even heard of this. What did you watch it on? To be? Only place it was It wasn't even on YouTube. Alright, so that's the only place to ease knocking it out of the park if you want horror and stuff, they've got everything. Yeah, they have a lot. You know, they also have those obnoxious repetitive commercials. Yeah, that's true. I don't the commercials. Okay, give or take. But man, can you like, turn it off? Like, you have like three sets of commercials you pay five times instead of one set of commercials. Well, I guarantee you they're not getting a lot of advertisers. So that's part of the thing will show your advertisement 10 times during a film. Added value 20 bucks. We should actually we should look at all cost advertising to be okay. Well, Vanessa, nice job. Yay. I mean, I didn't like my movie, but I liked yours. And Eric, I feel like I want to see yours. Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. There's definitely still lots of really good horror Western Westerns out there. So yeah, it was a fun fun topic. I thought for sure somebody would do near dark or have we already talked about that? I don't think we have I was on my list of potentials as well as them ravenous which I really wanted to talk about at some point, but ravenous or near dark kind of hit me as I mean, we had termers On this episode, but near dark kind of hit me a lot of probably watch this one, right. But you know, I hadn't seen tremor. So while I haven't seen near dark, I definitely would have done that here. Okay, well, I think that means it's my turn to pick the next sub genre. And I'm going to do something a little differently. I don't know that this actually falls into horror, but definitely thriller category. How about we all pick an Alfred Hitchcock movie? Yes, definitely. Yeah. My Hitchcock knowledge is actually pretty limited to just you know, North by Northwest and the birds and yes, Androids, the big ones that everybody knows. And he's had a lot of films, so I'm gonna pick something I've never seen. Nice. Me too. Nice. All right. Okay. So this is where we thank everybody for liking sharing posts, reaching out calling the hotline number, which is 253-237-4266. Give us a call and leave us a message there. We love that. We also love if you're participating in the value for value program that we're doing, which is if you get any value out of this turn around and put some value back into it, and we still have to do Micah's. Yes. Yeah. So all right. That's it. We'll be back in seven short days. 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