LOVECRAFT FILM FESTIVAL!

LOVECRAFT FILM FESTIVAL!
Eric and Kelly recount their trials and tribulations in Portland this year at the annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and Cthulhu Con! SPOILER: They had a blast! And then the gang continues with their celebration of Ray Bradbury Theater!
Also Discussed: Suitable Flesh, Moon Garden, Dark Harvest, When Evil Lurks.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Oh, I'm sorry did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sites to show you strange aeons. Welcome to strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there. Hello there. That's Vanessa over there. Hello. I'm Kelly. It seems like I haven't seen you in forever. Vanessa does seem like I haven't seen you guys in forever, but it's just been the normal amount of time. Well, except that Eric and I have seen way too much of each other. It's there's a lot of Yes, I am curious about this. We we got back from the HP Lovecraft Film Festival and kazoo con in Portland, Oregon. It was an absolute blast. Saw some old friends made some new friends definitely saw some cool movies. Yeah. And some cool filmmakers attached to thank God when we saw the shorts. Good short. Yeah. I was a little surprised to find out it was going to be an 82 degree weekend. October. Are you serious? I didn't love that part. And the bonus. Our hotel room. AC Well, I guess technically it worked. But it sure shit didn't work the way it's supposed to the fan the blue? Yeah. It did not. I mean, it really blew Vanessa. Oh, no. You could stand outside and the exhaust coming out. Oh, no, the AC was cooler than the air coming out of you. Oh, pick this up backwards. We ended up literally in the worst motel we've been in in 20 years of going to the film festival. How what made you decide on this particular hotel proximity to the theater? Literally what four or five blocks away? Yeah. Isn't that super sketchy? One that you walk past and go? Yeah, this was somehow worse. We got in there. The beds to two beds, right. One of them about 18 inches lower than the other. Just enough that I was like, this bed is high enough that a person could hide under here. So we're like kicking and doing all this shit to the thing. Very hollow sounding. Yeah, nothing on the walls. And then one single solitary like old school chair facing the beds that look more like an interrogation room than a motel. No dressers no closets? Nothing. Wow. Would you hang your suit your jackets on the water? On the sprinkler? Yeah, I did have a sprinkler. It had a smoke detector that was wrapped in plastic. Oh, no. And I had mentioned this to someone and they said perhaps they just painted in there. I can assure you that is not what was going on. That is a very luxurious, complimentary way of thinking about that. A follow up best part was the first time we turned off the lights. Oh, now the security lights were the sun outside in the parking lot they had, you know going for it was the fact that the parking lot was completely gated and everything so people couldn't just wander in. However, the people who live there full time could just wander in and they didn't look like the you know, yeah. Yeah, and so we turn off the lights and the glare from the parking lot was like, you know, sunshine outside. Oh my gosh, probably multiple times I woke up during the night. It was kind of eight or nine did I sleep for in the fucking morning I feel like you guys Yelp exists for a reason might be utilized. We we ran into our old friends. Again, as we always do down there and told them of our woes, and they sit next time let's all just get an air b&b together because they were like, you know, we can get a place with a couple of rooms and yeah, so I think that this might have been the trip that convinced me we should do that really. Gawker's fault nick the hat. He and his wife bought a house down there and the whole idea was now when we go to the Lovecraft Film Festival, we're all just hanging out here and and I said are you guys staying at your house? No, we rented that out and I was like the absolute worst. I was able to spend some quality time with Cody Goodfellow by quality time I've been drinking the entire time. My my anxiety peaks when I'm sitting across at I'm having a discussion with Cody Goodfellow because, as you know, I'm writing a novel and all this and Cody is one of my favorite writers. And he is one of the best, or most well spoken people. I know he he talks like he writes, oh, so there's never an or, or anything. It's all just he's like the Hunter S. Thompson of horror. He's brilliant. He's High as a kite most of the time, and I leave a conversation with him going, I wish I could write or speak like that. If you did enough drugs, you wouldn't need the arms and also, you know, interesting move on out and your brain you did were what was that a world war one fighter helmet or something like that a helmet kind of weight, kind of like a pilot's leather helmet goggles. Yeah, that was only for a short time he was wearing kind of a Pope's hat for a while as well. My brain construction of this man, you're probably not anywhere near far off at all, you're probably not thinking wildly. I feel like the person that you are the most excited to spend time with I am the least excited. That's fair. And then, as Eric knows, and Vanessa probably kind of knows is, when I hang out with all these people for too long, I need to just kind of take a break from everybody. And so I wandered down and found that my favorite cigar place was still open. And nobody was in there. And it's this gorgeous leather manly room and I bought a cigar and I smoked the cigar in there. And I read my copy of the round robin book that I participated in, and just had a really nice, relaxing four hours with the smoke. And then I went and found a pinball bar and had a scotch and then I high off the cigar and drunk off the scotch. I went to do my only panel at the festival. But all my notes are out the window immediately when the guy who was running the panel kind of changed the parameters. Just close it I said What the fuck? No, I spent that four hours at a crazy thing at a film festival. I went to a bunch of films and I think that's what I would have done. Pretty pretty crazy. But even after three days, sitting in those chairs, and they they now have nice chairs. It's not the back destruction things. First, we're going 17 films. No wonder you're in those were good chairs too. After Yeah, afterwards like, oh my god, it's awful. Did you have a favorite thing you saw down there? Yeah, it was not a movie. It was about two in the morning. We have wandered back on sandy Boulevard. And there's a strange sound coming down the road and we've kind of stopped a look. And here comes a truck doing the speed limit. You know, about 35 miles an hour on three wheels. The fourth was just a rim. Oh my gosh. Sparks. driver side front. Throwing sparks everywhere. And we just sat and I'll tell you my mouth was hanging open. Eric not as impressed as he should have been. It goes by and Eric goes. That is the craziest thing I've ever seen it Eric's like, you know, Portland. Portland's weird. I will say after spending some time in Georgia and watching I mean, I've seen somebody drive the wrong way down a freeway with three men holding a mattress, holding a mattress on the top of the car. Like the things you see in certain places does really change your parameters. What's weird? Yeah, yeah, coming back from Fantastic Fest. I did watch a car literally flip over. It's in like middle of the green. Yeah. And I was like, I don't even know how this happened. I just saw the end result and was like, Well, I'm going to the airport. And I've already passed this by and this is very weird. Okay, I guess that just happened. Go. Yeah. I was able to rekindle my bromance with Joseph scrimshaw introduced my other bromance, which is Eric to the to, you know, I wasn't sure how this would go. They both liked each other. Quite well. Back then the British Joe Solomon. Yeah. One of the guys that we met there had a little film in there called Forever flowers. It was really good and I bonded over British comedies. Oh, yeah. And that's what this festival does so well is that although the place that we all go afterwards, that is our After Party doesn't seem very happy to have us there. It still is a good place for everybody to kind of gather. And you know, they've got a nice outdoor area, they've got a nice indoor area and people just kind of wander from table to table and talk and meet and do whatever. So that's that's what this festival does so well. I did find a different bar on the way there that had just opened that I think might be much better for that. And they seem to like actually getting money from people, customers. Yeah, it's a weird place. I've noticed that it's been there. I think it's been there a long time. Because I always remember seeing why is this strip mall have a bunch of younger 21 But hanging out on the sidewalk? And? Well, pretty cool recently. Oh, well, no, no, it just opened June of this year. Okay. So they had something there last year. Yeah. I don't know what was there before. But I spent a good amount of time discussing with the owners and, and they were like, please have your after our parties here. You know. So I got a car to give it to Brian and Glen. I hope that that's what happens. You're getting 132 in the morning, getting these deep cut disco songs blasted out. She is in there talking with a interesting individual and Brian. Yeah. Fox was fun. Okay, so, once again, I just must urge anyone who's even thinking about it to attend the HP Lovecraft Film Festival. Yeah, the only festival that understands. The first movie I'm going to talk about then is going to be one that I saw there. And that is suitable flesh. Oh, awesome. I missed this at Fantastic Fest. And I was so curious how it was. I I liked it quite a bit. I think I liked it more than Eric is written by Dennis Paoli, who wrote Reanimator from beyond and Dagon and then a number of other non Lovecraft stuff. But yeah, and then directed by the guy that did. Shoot now I'm blanking on his name. I can't remember either, although his introduction to the movie was one of the great things that was shown. Yes. Yes, funny guy. And this felt very much like, you know, this was a film that Dennis had written for Stuart Gordon, and that they had tried to get off the ground many times and just couldn't get the money for it. And then, when Barbara Crampton came in, and in her new capacity as a producer, he was able to land some money and get it going. And it was, it was I thought it was very good. It felt very much like a Stuart Gordon Lovecraft film, Joe Lynch made that yeah, I liked that. I think that that will be coming out probably on shutter very soon. And if you like, the kind of twisted Lovecraft that sort of Gordon used to do, which is to say, some very black humor and sex, then I think you're gonna like this one. Overall, I liked it. I just felt the intros and everything I was reading about it. We're you know, this is this is Reanimator. This is the pink one Ron from beyond. And anybody who's seen those films, you there is a scene or two in that movie, that everybody knows. Okay, Jesus Christ, that one scene you go up to reanimate your family say more passion. They know exactly the scene you're talking about. I don't feel that feel this film went there quite as often as or, as it should have because it is full of sex. There's tons of sex scenes, but they're all somewhere between Grey's Anatomy and the Lifetime Channel. With more attitude, they got more attitude, but I feel if I should have gotten meaner at times, and it should have gotten more playful at other times, it felt very, like safe. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very modern in that you know the, you don't want to do nudity, find. Don't do nudity. But there are still ways to shoot a thing that implies what's going on. Better than just having everybody leave their clothes on all the time. Almost every scene got weird. But Eric wants more. I will say this Heather Graham, thank you for even just the slightest glimpse of your beautiful breasts. But the point being that if you're not going to do it, that's fine. Don't do it. Yeah. But if we're going to do what's going on in film right now, which is reinventing the way sex is portrayed on screen, let's shoot something interesting and different. Avoid the nudity. Cool, whatever. I don't care but let's make it interesting looking. Let's not make it look like Grey's Anatomy last season or something. It's distorted. Make it something weird. I feel like when you when somebody a filmmaker takes up the mantle of a Lovecraftian story or something that is cosmic horror, that's almost like the permission to take off the training wheels. And a lot of people are scared to do that. You know, like, that is the time you can go fucking batshit you can go weird, crazy places. But, of course, that's not crazy marketable. And it's maybe a little unexpected for some audiences, including horror audiences. But it's like, why even think about that territory then, if you don't want to go fully in? Well, I think the sex in this stands up to anything in Reanimator, or from beyond. The problem is that Dennis Paley gave a opening speech where he was saying that the reason this script never got made is because it was too sexy to this. And I think that's what Eric what really rubbed me the wrong way as he was like, All right, let's get into it. And then it was still 1986 sacks on screen. But there is nothing compared to the more passion scene, I'm referencing Reanimator there's nothing in there that felt I didn't feel a moment where I'm like, this is like, I'm back trouble, like, subversive. Are you talking about the head giving yet? Right? Okay. I mean, yeah, but I mean, there is a sex scene between between the two leads in Reanimator. That is basically a covered up in an in a blanket. It's very nice. And the 16 and from beyond is, is pretty much nothing. Exactly. Felt like those to me. Yeah, exactly. Pretty much nothing. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't surprise me that it feels that way based on what they were trying to do the plus though. Love what Barbara Crampton is doing as a producer of films. I mean, she basically came in and said, Yeah, let's make it. I'll make sure it happened. And she did. She's in it. She's great. Yeah. Of the violence is weird as hell, especially the ending some of the stuff that happens at the end, there is some surprisingly gory shots in there that I was like, wow, okay. Yeah. There's a lot to like in it. Yeah. Just just hit me a little bit different than because of the introduction upon our butts. I wonder make me uncomfortable. I wonder. And you tell me because I think if it had been lit, a little more interesting that that would have helped everything. I was stunned to hear the writers say at a panel I listened to later that they got everything they wanted. I'm like, You got some mediocre green screen going on and scenes like, you could tell Heather Graham's hair was no full bodied. Then there was a green screen and suddenly one side of her hair is just flattened. possibly be? Because, you know, they didn't want to deal with a stray. Yep. Yes. hairs going out. And little things like that. Yeah, I guess maybe he did. The the transformation idea was fucking amazing. Really cool. The way they switch bodies was great. They've made fantastic rules for that and stuck to him. Yeah, we used them really well. And Heather Graham had moments of just any if you watch the trailer, you see some of just some awesome line delivery she has and the new kid they got I thought was amazing. In everything he did. And cramped and did it, which was nice, natural. Right presents on screen. So yeah, if it comes out see it? Right. There's definitely not a Lovecraft fan out there that shouldn't check this one out. Right. Suitable flesh is based on the story the thing on the doorstep. Awesome. Well, I'm going to switch it up a little bit here. Because I was not at HP Lovecraft Film Festival and did not watch any Lovecraftian projects recently. But I did see when evil lurks when man I got to hear about. Yeah, I missed it a Fantastic Fest and had heard some good things about it. So it was a lot of fun. I think the thing I like about this director is that which I'm very new to this director, like this is the first thing of his that I've ever seen is that it's unexpected. There's a lot of unexpected in there. It's messy. Not everything's gonna tie up, but it feels like it's trying some really interesting things. The world building and this is very similar to how I felt about falling stars where you're in a strange world that is set up and has its own set of rules and that is just how it is. And everyone knows it and that's okay. And it's very interesting to kind of slowly learn about like, what that is and how those rules work and not everything's gonna get explained to you. So there's moments where You're like, Wait, why are you holding that? But that's almost better. I'd rather not know why or how or all the details. So I had a lot of fun with this. And I really did not expect it to go the various places that it did. So I thought, when I the first time I saw terrified, I was literally terrified. I thought that was the scariest thing I had seen in years. I mean, it's a scary movie. I wouldn't say that it's as scary as terrified. But it is still really good. I think it's even. I don't know if I want to say better, but it's bigger than terrified. So you're, there's obviously a larger budget, a larger scale, a larger amount of trust that's being distributed in this film. So it didn't scare me in the way that terrified did but you saw this in the theater the only theater this Seattle, I guess well, yeah, I kind of Googled like, where this was playing because it was it comes up on the app of like Fandango app and then you're like, wait, Where? Where? Movie said it's playing? So it was like in Kent. Like at this like little kid Plex. Oh, wow. It was like at 10 o'clock at night. And there's there's maybe a couple people there. But you know, as expected, very few. Were in language to good way to see for weird Yeah. Oh, absolutely. No, I was I was a big fan of that kind of method. But it was it was a lot of fun. I'm really glad I got to see it on the bigger screen. I think that it earned it so when evil lurks Yeah, and I do not know where it is coming or how but hopefully it'll be readily available for lots of people to check out. Man. I really want to say that terrified was shutter shutter. So hopefully it'll show up there before the Halloween season ends. Yeah, no kidding. Okay, so I got a crazy ass, almost art II kind of film. Okay, moon garden garden. This year, so this year kind of film with anti Duke is in it. And stars are directed by Ryan. Steven Davis, who's maybe not necessarily a name you might recognize. But if a storyline is a little girl, six or seven, maybe it goes into a coma. And is living in the world of her coma, trying to figure out how to get out. And there's some freaky ass thing chasing her. It's a fantastic character design. It's kind of like an empty face with like a hood around it and it kicks these teeth out puts his teeth in so the teeth are just sort of floating in the black. Oh, it's full of wild imagery with this. It's really really dark and uncomfortable and very well done. It's the I guess it's the director's kid is in that so I'm sure it'll piss off a lot of people because little kid in some weird dark shit going on. But it's onset. We've all know onset. We know the reality of what's going on behind those scenes. But just beautiful, amazing looking. What did you see this on? I believe I think it was shutter. The shutter prime if I'm not sure that's usually my source. But only the name again. moon garden. Is that two words or one? Words? Wow, that sounds really fantastic. It's really interesting. Really weird. Foreign Film. No. Oh, I really expected it to be really surprised that hold on. That's English. Okay, well then when I just saw that came out just this last weekend is called Dark harvest. Oh, yes. How was on my list. I really loved it. And then I started seeing people just slamming it constantly. I was like, Wow, I wonder why they don't like this movie as much as I did. Eric, this is the kind of stuff we were talking about how you just get a weird movie. And it goes with a premise. And there's no explanation why so it's the early 60s and a small town where every year just before Halloween, they lock all the young boys in their room for three days and they don't feed them and then on Halloween night, they let them out with bats and chains and knives and all this and they are hunting the October boy, which is this very creepy looking monster kind of pumpkin head looking thing that is running from them through the fields and it's trying to get to the church before midnight. And they're you know if if it does that it wins and we don't know what happens. But if they stop it, they beat it to death and cut it open and eat its innards. And the person who wins gets to leave the town now is wild. Yeah, that's awesome. And I just ended up loving this. I guess it's based on a book from I don't know, only a couple of years ago, you know, sometime this century, so I had never heard of the book, but I immediately bought it afterwards and I look forward to reading it. This is a rental on prime. It's six bucks. It's well, well worth it. Dark harvest. Am I okay, well, I'm gonna watch that tonight. Amazing. Sounds so good. Um, well, the other movie that I want to talk about watching is when we've already started to chat about which is terrified, which I had not seen before. Okay, at all. Until I had watched the his follow up movie in theaters, and oh, my god, that is really freaking creepy. just seen. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And like it. I mean, I guess it wasn't scary in the way I thought they were gonna do with, I don't know, you get a lot of jumpscares nowadays, and a lot of just grossed out stuff. This was just eerie. And again, didn't necessarily have like a super satisfying adding up ending necessarily, right? But like, at the same time, it was the, the journey. Fucking hell. And like, I kind of wished that the three houses had three completely different things in it, right? But that's okay. I'm still happy with the fact that they were all had this like, weird issue that each person had to deal with. So I just love that opening segment of the dead boy sitting at the dining table. I was like, this had to have been somebody's short story first or something. So I just, I just remember watching it that first time and I was like, I am really creeped out. Yeah. And he like, so slow at all. And you're in that's still enough to just be like, I don't know what you're capable of. If anything, but the fact that you're here, and he has this little like bowl of cereal this mom put out for him. It's like, Oh my God. Yeah, that's the one Yep. The invisible thing and the perspective of moving your head left to right, left, right. Interesting ideas. See things? Oh, man. Yeah, I really loved like, I mean, the terrible title very vague. But yeah, even I mean, it's pretty much direct translation from its title. Still pretty bad. And it's also unfortunate because it terrify her things. About right similar time. That's what I thought I was about to watch. Oh, this is not about a clown at all. No, no. This on shatter? I did. Yeah. Yeah. So jumping off the horror train for a brief moment. Oh, it's not allowed. It's October 13 And I watched plane getting seen this one with Gerard Butler. Yeah, and we've seen Gerard Butler fans over here. I mean, did something crash in a jungle? I dare ask you sort of then the crash you know, very well, you know. Very exciting. What do you guys think there's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's pretty damn good. I don't I almost feel like and I looked up on IMDb to double check on that thing and the trailer the trailer starts playing. This doesn't look like the movie I watched. I swear I watched somebody loaded the log version of the movie Up. It was so flat in color. Oh no. This is an interesting choice was so bizarre. And through the whole film? Yes. I feel like I remember it being kind of yellow in color. Not really further I don't know what happened with the one I watched. It looked like log wow look dim weird. explained for the plebes Eric log log filters what used to be pretty much had to have a super high end camera to do it but you can do it on your phone now where it minimizes all the color so when you go into or flatten sicko when you go into color corrected the saturation takes hold a lot stronger on the images that are created because the the information is denser it's weird to explain it is hard to explain but it allows color correcting to have a lot more flexibility you can just just do a lot more with the image with with log when it's shot unlock is assuming they did it correctly. True weight but from does not always. Yeah, this is the kind of quality discussion you get on strange aeons radio infotainment is what I like to write now you now you heard of infographic now infotainment coming out. Yeah, the more you know, the movies a year old so I'm gonna spoil something at the end there did seem to you I think Vanessa, you and I talked about this when we saw it. Did it seem to you that there should have been an after credit scene where we see Mike Colter and now he's running the island basically? Yes. Because he just disappears he just walks off you're like okay, okay, I'll wait to see the after credits scene. Yeah, it takes the money and go so it's like so the assumption is yeah, he's gonna be alright but I like that verified. Like is this leaving room for SQL like it just it did feel very strange Yeah. Yeah. Okay cool playing you saw that on Prime I'm guessing Yeah, yeah. Well, why don't we take a little break guys and then when we come back we are continuing our month of October and Ray Bradbury theater. Hello, let's see who's called the strange aeons radio hotline. Hey, you anchors. I love my rating system. This is Carlos, by the way. And yeah, you can go ahead and play this on your show. I love my rating system. I don't need to follow the rules set by establishment types like yourselves. If I want to do six and have it be whack it can be whack. Anyways I love your show. Thank you so much. So for those followers fr strange aeons radio talk Facebook page you'll understand exactly what he's talking about. What do you think of Carlos this rating system Kelly I'll well first of all, I love it. very imaginative and I also love the time and effort he puts into the graphic he makes for every film that he rates and so if you're not following on the strange aeons radio talk page. Carlos will post the picture of the movie he has watched and then he'll give it a number that I assume is somewhere between one and 10 that's gonna say is it out of 10x So because we've seen like a 7.1 or something I also like that he's got it down to you know, decimals decimal point 10th My only problem is that he'll he'll say this is Movie is a 6.6 and it's a math I'm back how can a 6.6 Be a man I would think that like a five should be a man right? Yes or isn't five or below neutral right? Yeah, that's what I saw. I thought five was average based only on my limited understanding of numbers between one and five big the median average of those numbers so that's all you guys know I love Carlos Carlos picked up a a drum radio cabinet like my own and we are going to be swapping record players on it and fixing it all up and all of that stuff. I'm proud that I've had some of my my weird 70s stuff rub off on him. He's got a big swag lamp hanging above his table on what have you done to him? Not only that I saw he was wearing pants the other days so like next thing you know he'll be wearing some nice dress shoes and dressing like an adult. Insane. I don't believe that for a second. Well, thanks for the call. Yes, thank you for the call Carl. love you buddy. If you'd like to call the strange aeons radio hotline dial 253-237-4266. We have returned. Hey guys, you know and the listeners probably know that all week or a month we've been talking about Ray Bradbury theater. We've each been picking an episode. This was a series that ran on HBO for a little bit and then on USA Network. Aurukun various things, I guess. Still can't figure out if it's six or seven seasons. But 365 episodes all 65 written by Ray Bradbury and then directed by various people. Sometimes it's got stars and actors you've heard of other times not so much. I noticed that as you get into the later seasons, I'm seeing a lot of people who are New Zealand actors. Yes. And I say that because you start looking at their credits and it's all Peter Jackson films. A lot of episodes of neighbours. Yeah. Yep. Okay, well, I'm gonna start it out. I'm putting 10 minutes on the buzzer, although I probably will not need it. And my episode is a distant sound of thunder. People ask, where do you get your ideas? Right here. Oh, this is my file never starved here. I'm Ray Bradbury. This is dinosaurs large and small fill my junk yard work room. This one given to me by a friend 30 years ago. These given his toys to my daughters. When they didn't play with them. I simply took them back. So with dinosaurs coming into my life, I've often wondered what would happen if I could go back into there's dinosaurs time machines, put them together, and you have a tale 1 billion years old this was season three episode six and it was released August 11 1989. It is directed by Kosta BoatUS, who has 15 credits including forgotten silver. Hey, the last dogs of winter and the making of Lord of the Rings. This was written by Ray Bradbury and stars. He'll Martin who has 40 credits, tons of 70s and 80s TV including dragnet iron side Kung Fu, Matt Houston. And 144 episodes of Hill Street Blues as Detective J de la rue. Did you watch Hill Street Blues? Anybody? Well, a few. Yeah, I vaguely recall watching it but also started John Bach, who has 102 credits tons and tons of TV but he also played a drill in The Two Towers and Return to the king. Very, very recognizable character actor. Do you guys ever read a sound of thunder? No. Well, you know the idea though, as soon as I start talking about it, it is the distant future the year 2054. And there is a time travel agency called the time Safari where the very wealthy can travel back to the Cretaceous period and actually hunt a dinosaur. Oh my god, this sounds so good. We meet Echols who is your typical big game hunter who has killed everything the planet has to offer and now wants to take advantage of this time Safari opportunity. He is cocky and arrogant. And you know he's going to be trouble. Plus he paid $10,000 to do this. Oh my god $10,000. That's like a third of a car. But that doesn't translate well to the future. That's so much. That's all right. I can love stuff like this. We also meet Travis who is the battle hardened Safari leader who has seen it all. He's done this hunt a million times and he walks Ackles and us the audience through the rules of the hunt. He explains that when they time travel back, they will land in a Cretaceous era jungle and just above the ground is this groovy floating sidewalk that the hunters must all keep to Under no circumstances are they allowed to leave or even step off of the sidewalk and they obey the rules. Oh, you've seen this? That was over. When Eccles questions this, Travis explains to him that it is imperative that they not leave any mark of their passage except for begging a dinosaur since they all went extinct during the ice age. So this is actual dialogue that I liked. He says this is Travis. If we kill a mouse here, all the future family of that mouse is killed right? And all the families of all the families, you step on a mouse you annihilate one 1000 A million possible mice. And Eccles is like so. And Travis says well, for want of 10 Mice a fox dies for want of a fox a lion stars for want of a lion infinite billions of life forms cease to exist. A man goes hunting but you friend have stepped on all his lions. The caveman starves from his loins might have sprung 10 sons from these 100 kill this one man, you destroy a race of people and entire history of life. Europe remains forever a dark forests. Step on a mouse, you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon across eternity. Wow. This is dialogue right out of the story. It's so good, so good. So that gets sent back. And Echols is suitably impressed. The plants are crazy looking and there are big blowup bugs flying around and such but plants aren't that crazy looking. Pretty low budget. They look like all the props from every jungle movie. Yeah, I wanted them to be bigger. They look like the fern I used to have in my front room so and then there comes a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And I have to tell you guys, this is one sad special effect. Looks like it came out of a theme park from the 70s you can pretty much see the hinge on his jaws. And he's moving very slowly and very stiffly. The Beskydy quite quite bad. Still, this is Theater right? So everybody who sees it as like holy shit. That night is terrifying. And of course, big tough Eccles is actually terrified when he sees it. And guess what, what does he do Vanessa? He stumbles he steps off the sidewalk. Yeah. The hunters kill the tenant the dinosaur but Travis is fucking furious with Ackles and forces everyone back to the time machine you hustles and back very quickly, Echols is whiny the whole time I didn't do anything. I didn't kill them out. And they get no closeup of like a cockroach underneath his shoe. No, not yet. They get in the machine and they come back to the present day and of course everything has changed. It now appears that there is some kind of either Nazis or some similar fascist group running the country and when they were leaving, there's a little bit of a hint that there is a political thing going on with these two candidates that are very different one who was apparently a good guy when he was apparently a bad guy, and the good guy has one but when they come back it is the other guy who was one. And Eccles keep saying it wasn't anything he did. But then Travis notices on the bottom of Eccles boots is a dead prehistoric butterfly. This stuff writes itself this would have been a great ending but they take it just a tad further aware Engels pulls out his gun and points it at the guy's head and then it crashes the black and you hear the gunshots damn nice. Wow. I love this story. It is one of my very favorite Ray Bradbury stories. It definitely does not hold up in this cheap format. It is still much better than the movie version that came out. I don't know 15 years ago, the sound of thunder that doesn't follow the story at all. But the problem with this and anytime travel story is that none of this actually holds up under any kind of scrutiny right? Yeah. So first of all, as the hunters are walking on the sidewalk, they're brushing past plants constantly and touching them sure like that. Visibly deserting serving them. And then they shoot a T Rex, right? Which is fine. But when the T Rex falls, what if he falls on a mouse? Yeah, or whatever they never say anything like that. Probably fell on dozens of these kinds of butterflies. Yeah, so anyway, still a great still a great story. I have trivia. The term the butterfly effect was coined by meteorologists, Edward Norton Lorenz in discussing how the slightest error ripple across the world might launch a tornado how halfway across the planet. He originally used in his theory a seagull causing a storm, but turned it into a butterfly in 1972. This story came out in 1952 and call here's June issue to be exact so fuck off Lorenz you even best. A comic book version appeared in issue 25, a weird science fantasy and that's one of those EC comics we talked about in the last episode. It was also adapted by Richard Corbin for tops Ray Bradbury comics in 1993. It is parodied in a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons, which I think I will have to put all of those treehouse and horrors on my watch list for October. They're really good ones. Yeah. And two bad ones. But yeah, and then here's the thing I was talking about the film adaptation of the same name starring Ben Kingsley. Edward Burns and Catherine McCormick was released in 2005. Famed film critic Roger Ebert stated that while he cannot endorse it, he can appreciate it as a film that is bad because it wants so much to be terrific that it explodes under the strain of a lot of those movies. Okay, sound of thunder definitely worth watching ever see Grand Tour disaster in time? No with Jeff Daniels is the lead in that is before Dumb and Dumber. And that's kind of the idea of that where they have a tourist guide in the future that basically takes people the points of massive disaster so they can watch them. Wow, they're like Pompeii. Yeah, exactly. Okay, this is treated seriously. Oh, yeah. I remember it being really good. But I have seen very little about it ever since then. Okay, but and then on the list. I'm turning my buzzer off. Yeah. Vanessa, you want to go next? Yeah, absolutely. 10 minutes. All right. So the episode that I checked out was called Mars's heaven, harm regret. This is. Mission one, calling us to come in Houston. season five episode one, probably, maybe. Always a question mark, directed by John Lang, who has 3038 credits to his name, including beyond a reasonable doubt. five episodes of Power Rangers Megaforce. three episodes of Power Rangers Mystic Force eight episodes of Power Rangers SPD. Three EPS of episodes of Xena four of Hercules and 15 of adventures of Swiss Family Robinson. So this is a TV director, starring Howie Linden, who has 78 credits to his name, including 171 episodes of Barney Miller, as of course Captain Barney Miller. I saw this guy was like You look kind of familiar. He has done a lot of TV walk on role sense. He's one of those guys who I think after the his big show sort of got given a lot of opportunities for TV shows like half dying. It was like they he was almost continuously famous, but not Paul Gross, who has 52 credits to his name, including 67 episodes of do south, but two episodes of why the last man as President Ted Campbell, which is what I knew him from, and he was in 12, episodes of Eastwick as Darryl Van Horn. So continuing the torch all the other people in this, we're not really they didn't even have photos on IMDb, so we don't need to talk about them. The story follows a group of astronauts who are successfully landing on Mars for the very first time, Earth has sent them over. They step out they walk on to what looks very, very much like the moon landing setup. But read. I was like, How come no one ever accuses doesn't accuse Ray Bradbury of faking the moon landing. You know, Sandy wrote it Kubrick shot it exactly. But I mean, the shots are all there like the equipment looks great. And they give each other like big high fives and like we did it you, buddy. And then all of a sudden they hear like a rooster. And they're like, wait a minute, this is odd. And they start to walk just a little bit towards the sound. And all of a sudden they're walking on grass. And then they're walking through trees, and then they they fall upon a very normal looking small town that they definitely didn't just change to a set of a small town instantly. So you're you're in it. The first it's fine. The second that they get there. The first astronaut recognises the sound of like a tennis ball. And he's like, Ha and runs off. You're like, wait, what and the guys, the other two follow him and it's just a big empty tennis court and it's like, Kay, that guy disappeared. Interesting, interesting. The second guy sees walking down the street, his grandfather who beckons him over and he gives him a big hug and astronaut's just crying. And his grandfather has been dead for quite a while. And he's like, you've been gone so long and the grandpa's like don't even think about it. Don't even worry about it. You were together now come on. And then he goes through a little arch and just disappears. And so we're left with the captain Captain Black, who is very much worried about what is going on here does not understand what is going on here. And he calls the ship and tells the other people who are still inside Do not leave do not exit the ship. And he starts to wander around town just trying to figure out what's what's happening. And of course he runs into none other than Him. his long dead brother, who teases him, he wants him to throw a football around with him. He wants him to come back home to the family house, there's going to be a big band. What are they called parade that night fireworks. And this is like very much the I don't know, 1930s Americana, like very, really, really American throwback love. So of course, he follows and sees his dead long dead mother playing the piano. And all of a sudden, he's in casual clothing. And now we see him making a speech at a dinner surrounded by friends and the other astronauts and their long dead ones. And then he's making the speech. He's like, you know, I don't even know how I'm here. And they're like, but you're here. And it's great. And we've been given this opportunity, and we're not going to squander it. So you see him kind of living through this day, many of his mom and brothers really encouraging him at the end of it to go to bed. Just go to bed. It's bedtime, just go to sleep. Really, it's fine. And of course, he goes up and there's this looming sense of maybe he shouldn't go to bed and his brother's like, what do you think? What do you think is gonna happen? You think I'm gonna kill you? Oh. He's like, you know, and he starts to talk it through. And suddenly he just knows exactly what's happened. Which is that, you know, what if the Martians knew we were coming? And what if they had like telepathic powers? And what if they were able to read our minds and project these things to us, so that they prevented us from colonizing their land? And then what if they tricked us by showing us their loved ones? And then they prevent us from taking over their lands? And the brothers like, sounds pretty far fetched, man, why don't you go to bed haha. So of course, he turns to leave and as he opens the door, we see a giant monstrous hands pull on his shoulder. So that is the ending of Moses heaven. Holy shit, I love that. It is, is actually taken from part of, well, not initially Martian Chronicles. It was originally a science fiction short story, published in plant at Planet stories from 1948. It was then selected by science fiction writers in America is one of the best sci fi short stories published before the Nebula Awards existed. It was in the Hall of Fame of volume one from 1929 to 1964. Era. And then he redid it, and it became the sixth chapter of Martian Chronicles, and it was revised as the third expedition. So um, yeah, you know, I think that it has a really neat idea, but it suffers very much like your dinosaur one, where all of a sudden, it goes from this cool concept, and you almost feel like you're immersed to like, and now you're just walking around in a shitty small town that they shot somewhere. Like, it's just you do not feel at it at all. And then they, you know, they're wearing their outfits at least, and then all of a sudden, they're not. I don't know, there, there was a neat moment where one of the astronauts had left the ship and he runs up to them. And they're like, Hey, why don't you come and hang out with us? And he's like, I don't know what the fuck is going on here by he's like, Captain, Do I have permission to leave? And he's like, sure, I guess. And they watched him run off. They're like, poor guy. He doesn't have anyone here. He was an orphan. Oh, my. So I liked that moment. But it did feel very convenient that everything kind of moved as quickly as it did. But he figured out exactly what the Martians plot was just by standing in a room looking at the side of the house. You know, it just I don't know. It's it's interesting. old timey America looks really lame. And I don't want to be there. This was adapted as a radio drama for the anthology series escape Dimension X, think x minus one and future tense. And it was adapted to DC comic book spirit science number 18. So that's all I got for this guy. I tried so hard to find budget information on this show, you know, 1989 wouldn't, wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that they might have had. I don't know what half a million for an episode. Could be. But I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what the limitations were or what the agreements were once it was bought by. Right. Right. So maybe it was only a quarter of a million per episode. Oh, boy. Yeah. And so what did the effects of the spaceship look like? I mean, they really didn't show it they showed like as slightly blurry out of focus. Guess like you saw the astronauts coming out of the side of something? Yeah. And you said pieces of machines that were sort of in the way, but like, Yeah, you did not see it really. I mean, I will say the ending has a little bit of you see, like a ship in space. Looks like somebody drew it. I mean, it's a little light a little penlight slowly making its way towards a red planet. You know, I would say that it seemed like if there was any money it was in like, the first couple minutes and then after that, it was very much like, so no budget. Yeah, like with my time Safari one. Even an establishing shot of a futuristic looking building would have been nice, but instead, you've got a very narrow shot of this time Safari office, which, you know, the entire idea of, you know, we've perfected time travel, and we are now going to use it to hunt dinosaurs, but we don't want to change anything in the past. I think that that would be the first thing that everybody would do is try to change things in the past. Yeah. 100% And how is the sidewalk enough to keep you out? Anyway, it's a floating sidewalk. But I've just my point being that it was it was like a generic futuristic office setting was also a bridge too far for this production. You know? Yeah. Like they couldn't get like, like maybe they could get somebody do a really really bad map painting maybe? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I don't want to slag on it because I'm enjoying these shows, but the budget is not high. Now. It's like the one I talked about. Those took place in 2055. Yeah, one year later. They're all the shots are like tight shots of buildings and nothing nothing. Why? Yep. All right there 10 minutes on the buzzer. All right, neat. What am I talking about the coffin. I'll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need. And begin. I'm Ray Bradbury. And this is Well, right now what shall it be out of all this? What do I choose to make a story? I never know where the next one will take me. And the trip exactly one half exhilaration exactly one half terror from 1988 season two episode nine or season three episode nine Near as I can tell, I think they just kind of split the episodes split the seasons and moved them down to make whatever USA or whoever wanted but the makes it easier to find on peacock if it's season three. You see this on peacock and YouTube and I'm married of surprising places, directed by Tom Cotter, who directed eight episodes of heartbeat and eight episodes of flood tide. And the assassin for Ray Bradbury theater. Excellent. Written by Hey, Ray Bradbury. No Well, no way. The acting Denholm Elliot was one of the main guys who spent in love everything. Noises Off Trading Places rated as a Lost Ark. Toy Soldiers The Razor's Edge room with a few boys from Brazil, and a bridge too far. Yeah, and of course a much bigger role in in the third. Indiana Jones kept going. I love I love him. Yeah. 162 credits, so you've probably seen him. And then Daniel Hurley, who had 137 credits. It was in The Last Starfighter. Oh, and Halloween three? Yes. Robocop? One and two. Yes. six episodes of Twin Peaks. Death Ray 2000. And the whipping boys. This guy's awesome. Sure, why not? And Clive swift who was 117 credits. So these are all well actors. He was an X caliber frenzy. 44 episodes of keeping up appearances. Sounds British? Yeah. Sure sounds like it. So were we open with the usual thing. I did not realize how many times Mickey Mouse shows up in Ray Bradbury's office like at least at least twice I think maybe three times. He's got a big there's gonna be this is a different kind of a different look at office. Yeah, but it had a big Mickey Mouse when it goes through sort of like a first door and then he's got a Mickey Mouse, Jack in the Box on his desk. Oh my god. Inspiration. Remember that Disney put out something wicked this way comes shortly before this series about the right time. Yep. So and this movie this this one I enjoyed over, I gotta say, although it is full of late 80s versions of robots. So they're sort of similar to I five or five are called fire any fire? Yeah, it's full of those kind of weird little skinny strange robots that are basically chunks of metal that are designed to move a little bit nice the that they take orders from walkie talkie, so that's nice. remotely control them with your voice. This is all controlled by the wealthy man who is removed, decided on his imminent death that he's going to remove all of the money from his banks and all of his jewelry from his Pio boxes and store it all in his house. And the lawyer of course, is why I have my reasons. I love that the robot does also come ready made with smartass comments. His brother shows up with the front door the robot answers What do you want? Then the brother walks into where the wealthier guy is working. He does the exact same things. What do you want? Like I know where's the robot learned his sayings? The man has his brother often comes by for money. These are two guys who do not like each other at all. So yes, he has come by for money, but he's very interested in whatever the robot rich guy is building his own coffin, a strange special one of a kind coffin that really won't talk much about it, but seems very interesting class cover and all kinds of strange stuff going on. So I was gonna be doing this. He has fun about British people, listening to them insult each other as much funny. Good. It's so good. It's their team. It's so high brow sounding and they're just like, wow, that was hard. The he's got further robots who like clean stuff and take things and they do all kinds of crap. But no way they're taking stairs. It's not gonna happen. He built some for just the upstairs. Yeah, that's right. And the coffin opens up on words and plays music. So it's very nice. As he sends his brother away, he dies. Immediately the wealthy guy shows up. I'm done. So the rich brother decides he's left a riddle for him to find the remaining money. He's left the house, but the house is virtually worthless because it's mortgaged to the hilt where it's not. It's mortgaged beyond the value of the house. So he gets nothing out of that. But then he finds out that the lawyer tells him Yeah, he pulled all his money out. I don't know where it is, but it's in this house. Can you think of where it might be stored? Often isn't. So yeah, does not necessarily go they'll go the way the obnoxious guy was expecting it to go, but exactly where you think it's gonna go? Yep. And it's nicely, like, why would you fall for that? But it's nicely explained where the brother recorded a voice saying, Well, I know. You have this weird habit when anybody tells you not to do something or you should do something. You do it either way. It's like, you know, don't drink. That is awful. So what do you do? You drink it, and he sets him up perfectly. And it all works quite nicely. It is a very satisfying ending I enjoy. I'm guessing what I'm guessing he tells him just don't go in the coffee. Whatever you do. Yeah, drag along those lines. After I'm gone. This was originally published in Wake for the living as wake for the living and dying mystery in 1947. So I read the original story who Jesus it's so much darker. Like guys, there's really not robots that I remember specifically being in it, which adds a weird little comedy element because they're just so goofy, right? Yeah. And the written story did not have that there's blood and stuff involved, and it's got a really dark edge. I think. I mean, I would prefer to see that version shot but I can understand why they shot this version, because it's a really, really shorthand way to separate the brothers. Oh, this guy's the successful one because he's made all this weird shit. And this is the other guy. There you go. I like that one. I did. I have not read that one. But it sounds fun. It's really good. Partially because these are Class A performers Yeah. So what they're doing is so fun to watch and the way it the reaction winds are so good and the back and forth is solid. And it just really works. I have to say I, I'm enjoying this little experiment we're doing this month. But there's a real kind of disappointment on my end that I've picked stories that I really loved and not one of them has really been done very well. Yeah. And I blame that kind of on Bradbury, like, Okay, if you've got $250,000 In episode, why would you do the time travel episode about the Tyrannosaurus Rex? You don't have the budget for that. Why not do one of your shorter smaller stories, right? Like this one is a perfect pic. Right. And they made it more expensive than it needed to be right in the way we produced it, which was a little weird. But yeah, it seems like that could have they could have kept that one closer to the original story and thrown whatever extra money they had towards the Tyrannosaurus Rex. You know, with covering the seam on his jaw? A little bit. We couldn't get stopped motion. Turning your buzzer off. Yeah, weren't left. Okay, well, as we know, we're only in week three of October. So we'll be coming back with one more episode of Ray Bradbury theater. This is the part where we tell everybody thank you for liking and sharing posts for participating in the value for value model, which is if you get some value out of this somehow give us some value back doesn't matter if it's money. Although we like that a lot does help. But it also happens when you tell somebody hey, I liked this podcast and I think you might like it. Also, if you're liking the posts that somehow feeds the algorithm, I don't understand why or how. And in fact, I don't know that that's true. But everyone says so. So I'm going to repeat it smash the like button. Ring that Bill speaking of donations, yeah, one from Mark or Mark, Mark. I'm sorry, Mike. You know me names what? Holy smokes. That was to realize why we get no money. Thank you for your money market. Love it, you know, considering some of the voicemails he's left me about pronouncing things I'm okay with that. This is a he sent me a request though. Wax mask from 1997 which is a full chi Argento remake of The House of Wax, which went ended up being finished by a special effects guy. So coincidentally starting some serious effects failures when CG was involved, and an out of place Hellraiser II soundtrack and a lead role that 100% would have played horribly by Asia Argento of Dario had directed. But it does have a red stop motion. Heart removal. Hey Micah, thank you for supporting us. Please don't let Eric's mispronunciation of your name and every name throw you off supporting us continually every yes, you're my friend first. So don't worry about these two jokers that will help that's it for the episode so we're gonna be back in seven short days and we are continuing to talk about Ray Bradbury theater. See you next Thursday. Transportation other considerations for strange aeons radio produced by Pan Am airlines. When you think of traveling think of pan and you can't think the experience. 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