94 SMALL TOWN HORRORS!

94 SMALL TOWN HORRORS!
Mandalorian outrage, the not-very-animated Creepshow special and The New Mutants are discussed before the gang packs their bags to vacation in some pretty creepy little towns.

Transcript

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Strange Aeons: 0:03

Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? Somewhere between science and superstition? such sites to show you

Kelly: 0:27

Strange Aeons. Welcome Strange Aeons radio. That's Eric over there.

Eric: 0:33

Hello.

Kelly: 0:33

That's Vanessa over there.

Vanessa: 0:34

Hello.

Kelly: 0:35

I'm Kelly. Hey guys, nice and toasty in here and we're in person.

Vanessa: 0:39

So love. We're so warm, so bright.

Kelly: 0:43

It was 34 degrees outside when I got up today, and it's probably only 39 right now. But with those out, it's streaming 6570 Oh, in here. It's gotta be 70 I feel like I'm ready to sweat.

Vanessa: 1:01

I'm not sweating yet. It's not like a summer day in here, but like it's warm. Yeah, I'm trying to roll up sleeves on a shirt that I can't roll up. So let's see.

Kelly: 1:13

Also, we have new president. We do.

Eric: 1:16

Kanye did well, yeah,

Vanessa: 1:18

he did really good. I was he really pulled that out.

Eric: 1:21

I wonder those states didn't want to release their findings. Oh, wait, hold on. No, that's not right.

Vanessa: 1:28

Yeah, no, it was a pretty exciting day yesterday, although it was very weird because I'd gone to bed waiting on the results. And no one was calling it and I like watched Biden come out and go, I'm sorry. Good night. I'm going to bed by and then the next morning I got up and like the TV was on and like, they're just talking super nonchalant about, like, problems Biden's gonna have to deal with. And I was like, what's happening? They're like, Oh, he won. And then it took like four more hours before cnn got excited and like, showed people partying, and I was like, oh, okay, now we're there. Took me a minute, roll out of bed and get their

Eric: 2:09

roll out or better when like noon, your editors

Vanessa: 2:12

got up at 1030

Unknown: 2:14

really early,

Vanessa: 2:15

very early. For me. That's a good time to get out.

Kelly: 2:18

I know I'm probably in the minority. But I don't know that I quite believe the answer to an old white guy that half the country hates is replacing him with a different old white guy that half the country hates. But

Vanessa: 2:30

you see just anything other than that particular old white guy, like I think I mean, but like Biden's very middle of the road and doesn't necessarily stand on all the sides of things that I want for like progressive ness, but I don't give an F because he's not gonna put us in nuclear war. He is not going to put children hopefully in cages.

Kelly: 2:54

He'd like all the major second he was part of the administration that first started doing that. Why don't we

Eric: 3:02

cages they put them and then they cataloged and kept all the records. And then they're done processing then they released all of them

Kelly: 3:08

cages or cages.

Unknown: 3:10

Oh my god.

Kelly: 3:10

I mean, if that's what we're worried about,

Vanessa: 3:12

it's not the cage part. It's children never finding their parents again, part

Eric: 3:16

500 kids that don't know. anymore. I had parents at one time,

Unknown: 3:20

I'm pretty sure.

Eric: 3:21

I'm three. So I don't remember what they look sound or anything else. Like I don't remember their names. But I think one of my favorite means to come out of all this. And there's a lot of good ones there. No matter who you like or dislike was the Don't be the guy that when you lose your job, the entire world goes out in droves into the streets and celebrates.

Vanessa: 3:44

That is so true. Oh my god, it was it was great. I saw him this morning with the everything's fine. firedog where there was no fire and he just says everything's fine. I was like I'm looking forward to being bored. I'm looking forward so hardcore to be bored every day

Eric: 4:01

there is that. You know like he what he tweeted today?

Kelly: 4:04

Yeah, but Biden.

Eric: 4:05

He What did he tweet? He said that today he's going to be discussing. Oh, okay. Don't care. We're all the words spelled correctly? Yes. Did he use them contextually correctly? Yes.

Kelly: 4:16

Holy shit. Yeah, whether you are for him or against him. I do think this is probably good for the psyche of America to just kind of get into a a routine of of not

Vanessa: 4:30

being like angry all the time about whatever. Yeah, like I'm definitely over that and like, I wouldn't care. Like if it was McCain, I'd feel just as happy right now. You know,

Eric: 4:41

we the one thing that we've talked briefly about them before, but one thing I was sad to read yesterday that q anon has posted nothing since Tuesday.

Vanessa: 4:51

Oh, well, what guess what maybe they have now queuing on is potentially up for sale. The person who is q who is on the inside inside inside he's like supposed to be the guy who works under Trump. I just found about out about this like hours ago might just be a 30 something year old dude living with his parents might might very well be on people are losing their damn minds because their God is like,

Kelly: 5:20

again done different kinds of there.

Vanessa: 5:24

They have no one and and Twitter might ban Trump as soon as he's no longer president. Which would be amazing because I'm done. I'm done like stop rallying people for your nonsense, sir.

Kelly: 5:38

I wish Twitter would die. I wish Facebook would die. I've been on Facebook for about a week and a half

Eric: 5:45

now of all our people we can communicate through Facebook, but I wish there's another damn way we can do it. Well,

Vanessa: 5:50

especially I mean, my that's my favorite part about Facebook is the group's like I love our group. And then I do a lot of Star Trek groups where all they do is post like sexy pictures of Garrick. And like, that makes me so happy. So there's like some good spots but you really have to dig like my newsfeed is the last place I want to look.

Kelly: 6:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, guys, I watched a really really cool movie just lately and it's available only as a rental but I am highly recommending it. It is called Love and monsters.

Vanessa: 6:23

I am so excited about this because you recommended it I haven't managed to get to it yet, but it sounded awesome. It's,

Kelly: 6:31

it's, well, I'll just say this if you are against the the three act structure Hero's Journey format, you will not like this movie because it literally is a hero's journey. It's a it's a world that has been taken over by monsters and humans are forced to live underground basically. And this young man has decided after eight years, he's gonna go find his lost love that you know, they split up when the attack came. And she is in a different Camp 80 miles away 80 miles of monsters he has to go through and he has a particular problem which is he is paralyzed with fright when these monsters come. Okay. Holy shit. That sounds It is so much wonderful.

Eric: 7:15

Like, is it like I don't want to use it too disparaging term but is like a monster romantic comedy.

Kelly: 7:22

Yes. Oh, fuck yeah. Okay. Oh, absolutely. It is. And it's it's got a lot of the feel of the original zombie land and stuff like that. It's got some good humor in it. And I just really, really enjoyed it. And I even teared up a little bit at the end.

Eric: 7:38

Then, you know, it's a good romantic comedy. Yeah. That's right. Two guys just said that.

Vanessa: 7:43

I know. I'm just sitting here quietly on the side like Yes, yes. Talk about his please. Well, I watched a film that I had never seen and was definitely surprised for me the hunger. Oh, fuck, I got it from the library as part of my like Halloween 30 but the library's all messed up. So um, it got me super late. So I watched it last night and oh my god. What the heck was that film like it was really it reminded me so much of Blade Runner. tonally as far as like the mood and atmosphere. Tony Scott feels like the Tony Scott version of Blade Runner. It's like beautiful and slow and deliberate and like, just finished. I don't know. I I loved it. It was crazy.

Eric: 8:33

I love that film is one of my favorite. Actually one of my favorite horror films. It is astounding.

Vanessa: 8:39

I had to I did Google afterwards. What happened at the end? And then it just kept trying to give me Hunger Games. I was like, No, I know.

Eric: 8:48

I read it. Yeah, that one's not a confusing. No, no, no, but my favorite part is films the beginning. Yes. Bela Lugosi is dead. segment in the club.

Unknown: 8:59

Oh, yeah. The

Eric: 9:01

people I just love the way that is shot

Vanessa: 9:03

is beautiful. And then she's juxtaposed against the like, monkey, the other Monkey God. Yeah. And that's one of the things that reminded me of Blade Runner with the random shots of the screeching album. I had like just such a similar like touchstone, but it was very cool. Very cool.

Kelly: 9:20

I feel like that kind of club did not exist until that movie, and then the Goths just were like, Oh, we love you so much.

Vanessa: 9:30

To be like, you know, just like oh, yeah, the golf sir into clubbin.

Eric: 9:34

It's kind of the other way around. It's a little goes he's dead became a giant hit because of that movie and then became a giant hit of golf, which expanded golf gargantuan in the 80s. So it had a massive appeal of what golf became. A lot of it came out of the hunger. Yeah, I

Vanessa: 9:52

feel like who would have thought Susan Saran then is like I've got goddess symbol.

Eric: 9:57

I know. It's David Bowie's I say more. Maybe more. That customer didn't move in that case, but she's the one that's in the

Vanessa: 10:04

eye now. Right? Yeah.

Eric: 10:06

But by the end, yeah, no. David Bowie is astounding.

Vanessa: 10:11

Oh my god so good. And the makeup is fucking insane. I don't is it David Bowie through the whole thing? Holy crap,

Eric: 10:21

dude. Yeah,

Vanessa: 10:22

I was like, No, this is just some other

Eric: 10:24

guy wonder if that's Dick Smith. Oh, I don't know he was the master of old age makeup. He did. Amadeus is probably his most famous Oscar winner, but he did hundreds and hundreds of films, but old age is one of his specialties. I wonder if he did that one. Huh?

Vanessa: 10:38

Yeah. So that was that was a surprise for me. I, I didn't I heard from a bunch of people. And I was like, Well, you know, it's on my list. It's been on my list for like, four years. So let's dig it out. And I was like, Oh, my God, this film so

Eric: 10:53

I could see if you came at vampires through near dark and lost boys. Sure. Yeah. God forbid, Twilight. This might be a very weird film. Right. But for me, it was one of the early vampire movies. I think I saw not, you know, other than hammer. And it just blew me away when I saw it the first time and I've loved it every time. I've watched it since Yeah,

Vanessa: 11:17

I think the first vampire movie I saw was probably interview. So I was like, Oh, cool. Okay, this seems like I don't know. I met my expectations are definitely not in the world of fun for vampire films.

Eric: 11:29

So nice. Yeah.

Vanessa: 11:31

So did you check anything out?

Eric: 11:33

I did. Man. I actually watched a new one

Kelly: 11:35

was

Eric: 11:37

get duped.

Kelly: 11:38

Why never heard of this.

Eric: 11:40

It's on amazon prime. I don't I don't think I don't know if it's shutter or not. I don't think so. It's on the border being horror, not horror. But it's a Scottish film director by Ninian Duff is basically a music video guy, I think it was first or second film. And the storyline is a group of four kids that are troubled youth, the guy a guy drops them off, and they have to go from point A to point B where they'll meet up with the adult again and then he leaves again and they do another point A to point B and use maps they their cell phones Of course, because you have to deal with that in every movie now don't work because where they are. And they run into people that they don't really clarify if they really are not, but they clarify they say they're royalty of the lands and want to remove these people who have are messing up their world. And older generation wants to destroy the younger generation kind of story. And it's funny as hell it's a comedy guys, there is a thing or two that happens is so insanely ludicrous and ridiculous that if you don't go with it might ruin the whole film. But I absolutely fell for it and loved it. And one of the funniest scenes in this movie, and it's just ridiculous where they they've just accidentally kill this guy. And there's a van at the top of a hill, and it just starts to roll down and it's this insanely long Hill you're watching going Oh yes, it's gonna fall, but it just keeps going straight down. Oh my goodness. This subtle, fun, amazing, ballsy move by the filmmaker. I'm just like, Oh, that's so stupid. And funny. I love it. That's not the ludicrous thing. But I won't say what it is because it's near the end. But I it's it's so much fun. I really really enjoyed this one.

Vanessa: 13:30

And that's a film.

Eric: 13:31

Yeah, get duped.

Kelly: 13:33

Get duped? Yeah, what does that mean? Or I think

Eric: 13:37

it's a Scottish slang that one of the guys is a rapper. And his journey is quite fun. But like to give you an idea of the strange humor is a scene where the four of them are brandishing their weapons. They stole the gun from one guy in a sword from another guy and the other guy's got like horns or something. guy pulls out a fork is like celebrate the fork. You yelled for all the other weapons yellow for mine. It's sharp. It's awesome. Definitely. And it's not even a red line. It's just straight flat streaming on prime.

Kelly: 14:11

Check that out. I watched the new remake of the witches.

Vanessa: 14:16

Oh,

Eric: 14:17

how doll Yeah, yes it

Vanessa: 14:20

did. And that chick

Kelly: 14:23

and Hathaway Anne Hathaway

Vanessa: 14:24

Hold on.

Kelly: 14:25

Yeah, she did. She did a really good job. I thought it was a fine movie. It it misses the charm of the original because that was all you know, Jim Henson animatronic mice and stuff like that. And this is all computer generated. But that being said, it all looked pretty good. It follows the story very closely. And I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of people who are just like, looks like shit. And I thought to myself, this does not look like shit. This looks like a million dollars, you know, per minute. It looked great. So It was very well acted and I really enjoyed it.

Eric: 15:03

Nice and that that's just a rental.

Kelly: 15:06

Yeah, that's a rental still I imagine it'll probably drop on Disney. You know before too long.

Vanessa: 15:12

Yeah, I think I saw it free somewhere already. Oh,

Kelly: 15:15

was it okay,

Vanessa: 15:16

I ran across it last night. Oh, HBO. Oh, okay, that's probably

Kelly: 15:21

okay. For some reason I thought it was a Disney movie, but I guess not.

Unknown: 15:25

No.

Eric: 15:26

You're great. Well, Jim Henson, this makes sense that he would go from point A to point B and get there.

Vanessa: 15:34

I checked out a new series that has been bopping around for half a second truth seekers.

Kelly: 15:41

Yeah. watch the first episode. Sure.

Vanessa: 15:43

Yeah. with Nick Frost, Simon pegs got a pretty small role in it. It's not an Edgar Wright piece. Although it has a little bit of a feeling of space to a certain extent. Yeah, it's fine.

Kelly: 15:56

Did you watch the whole series?

Vanessa: 15:58

I watched three episodes. Okay.

Eric: 16:00

I've heard rough stuff about it.

Kelly: 16:02

And I've heard people just saying this is amazing. Now I just I finished the first episode and then moved on to something else. I was like, I don't know if I'll watch this.

Vanessa: 16:11

I don't know that it's worth hanging on to like each episode, the monster the week part is fun. I do like that a lot. And there's some really neat little things in each episode surrounding that. But the larger plot, I don't know that I care about. Like, there's a mystery girl that we're slowly finding more out about and I just don't care. It's sort of like a

Eric: 16:29

like a Buffy series where there's sort of things of the week but it's got an overarching feels like

Vanessa: 16:34

Yeah, but it's like tilted the opposite way. We're like with Buffy, like the actual story underneath was really like engaging and kind of got you through some of the worst monsters just ones like if the monsters suck that we the whole thing would just feel like crap.

Eric: 16:48

Demon, I did a little thing before Halloween, where we came across this list of the best silly or good Halloween like sitcom or TV show episodes. So we went through a few of them because Buffy is Halloween episode. Yeah, he wears the fancy dress was one of the ones. Well, this one's good. The choice for supernatural was terrible. It was some weird one that was about 70% ongoing story. And 30% whatever the Halloween, I mean, I mean, there's a fine episode and context of the show. But I'm like, why did you pick this one. And there was Merkel's episode where he makes a puppet which I had never seen. I never watched that show. But it was weird. But that's not but the one of the movie I've got to talk about is one that I almost wanted to I kind of wanted to do for the lance Hendrickson film, but it wasn't available. I ended up ordering it from vinegar syndrome. So that gives you a starter of where this movie might end up. Called 1985 is called savage dawn. Oh, really seen this one. That's kind of why I wanted I was hoping it'd be a little better than it is. The directors guy named Simon nudge turn who's listed as an uncredited director of the 70s Films snuff.

Vanessa: 18:06

Oh my God, I've seen that.

Eric: 18:08

Not a great endorsement. But Lance Hendrickson is the lead dyed blonde. Which is a weird look for him. It doesn't really work. It starts off though, and I think okay, this is gonna be a great hero comes to small town save the day Western, but on motorcycles kind of movie. Oh, unfortunately, it has the weirdest things wrong with it. It's really good in a lot of ways, but his like, his refusal to call for action is so over the top ridiculous, like, almost everything's falling apart. His best friend's in a wheelchair. And it's his younger son and his younger daughter who's got the shotgun, so she's good to go. But he's like, I'm not going to fight again. Like, did you talk earlier about how Vietnam or something messed you up? So you're not going to fight again? Because if you did, I missed it. And so he disappears and the guy in the wheelchair, and the two basically kids go to take on this giant motorcycle gang who have stolen a tank.

Unknown: 19:12

Why?

Eric: 19:13

I'm going to talk about this movie it's gonna be another one of those that you're gonna say sounds awesome, right? And it is so close to being awesome. It's frustrating even has Sam Kennison in a scene. He is 85 so it wasn't Sam Kennison Oh, so you don't even really screaming now you barely even see his face. Oh, how interesting is there and he's, he's a barber. So you see half his face the whole time while he's talking. And he's being a preacher. He's trying to convert the guy he's talking to. And like, that voice has got it as it is. Again, it's a beat that it falls down in the action scenes, which is why which why it kind of falls apart in the logic and the action scenes is so weird. Like he's fighting a group of guys kind of in a desert and there's a warehouse next door. So they're fighting, they're fighting and somehow suddenly he's in the warehouse chasing a guy because he has to get down to the guy in the wheelchair somehow. So like I can see the director on well we need to get him down for this scene. How do we do that? I don't fucking care just put them in the house. Have we done with it? Wow. And it's got so many scenes that in the movie where the action is just off enough and the fighter bad fight choreographer, I don't think they had one. And it's just like, everything that should make this movie really cool. I mean, they got a tank they got the guy in the wheelchair has got himself a rocket launcher. And they've got battles and everything is there for it to be a great sort of road. Maurier kind of action film but it just misses the marks on all of them. And I'm sure there's somebody out there that loves it for that same reason. And I'll bet if I watch it again in a couple of years, I might enjoy it more because I know I'm going to watch it for it just be like ludicrous right? But But it's interesting job so it's gorgeous. It looks fantastic. incredibly well remade there's an audio commentary by the director which I'm a little curious to listen to. Lance is nowhere to be found I don't think he liked this one very much. Yeah, so savage savage dawn savage dawn.

Vanessa: 21:26

Yeah, I feel like that's the risk with vinegar syndrome like the the front the cover will look so good. And you're like man, this is gonna be amazing like this is what happened to me with death row game show I was like there's nothing that could possibly be bad about or is that a shout factory? Anyway, like, yeah, and then like you get to starting watching the film. You're like, Oh,

Unknown: 21:47

no,

Eric: 21:48

well, vinegar syndrome. I actually expect it to be a really shitty I was gonna

Kelly: 21:52

say Really? And I think you know what you're getting just

Vanessa: 21:54

I mean, but yeah, you still want to be entertained on some level and that's when it's Yeah, about half about 50% of what I bought on vinegar syndrome has been awful like not watchable.

Eric: 22:06

Yeah, this is the problem this one had is it started off very promising of being a real low budget fun action movie and then when the action really started that sort of it fell over Oh, wow. Oh, still worth seeing just because it's Lance and he's always shoot

Vanessa: 22:24

so many things. Just spin a bottle and be like, Oh, this plan Sanders.

Kelly: 22:30

Yeah, and really hit or miss. Do you guys did you either either of you see? gunfighters moon, I believe it was called her gunslingers moon I

Vanessa: 22:39

have never heard, like 1992

Kelly: 22:42

ish or something like that. Lance. henriksen. It's a full on Western. And I love it. But it's just one of those, you know, little movies that he did. And look, I think Lance knows that. You got to pay the bills sometimes. And so he takes pretty much anything that gets offered to them is, yep,

Eric: 22:59

I hold nothing against actors and bad films just because, for me, and probably because what I've done in film, I blame the director. Yeah, especially if I know the actor is capable of a good performance, right? Yeah. It's like, yeah, this is this is on you or whoever was directing this person. You know, maybe the editor was just an idiot and didn't know how to cut a scene together. But do every movie you can man if somebody offers you a job? Yeah, take it. Unless you're Tom Cruise and you can go out and we'll work on what I want to work on. Like the mummy.

Kelly: 23:33

You say you playing the director? I'm right there with you. Like Coppola's Dracula, everyone Meg's on Keanu and that and I'm like, Look, Coppola could have said something. Yeah, that's

Vanessa: 23:43

true. Yeah, he could have been like, you know what, let's skip the accent. Like were you You look fine.

Eric: 23:49

Yeah, just pull a robin hood. You know, halfway through just stop trying.

Kelly: 23:57

Yes, I have my seagulls back everybody. I'm very happy. They're not my original seagulls but you are all my seagulls all welcome. Alright guys, should we take a little break and then we are coming back with Eric's genre pic of party movies.

Unknown: 24:25

I don't even care anymore. We got the holster in this bed.

Strange Aeons: 24:28

So it's done. I don't have any more time. So let me just recap right now is brainy Gremlin spider Gremlin back Gremlin. Lady Gremlin googly eyed Gremlin lectricity

Unknown: 24:36

Gremlin

Strange Aeons: 24:37

Hulk Hogan, how about throwing a gremlin? festival Gremlin just write it up. I'm having so much fun. Thank you is all gonna be in the actual film. Now I gotta go put some cowboys and Back to the Future three. Okay, you guys know that none of that is going to be in the actual book.

Kelly: 25:25

And we're back. Eric this was your genre pick

Eric: 25:29

well yes yes it was explained again

Kelly: 25:31

with this is supposed to be

Eric: 25:32

just the idea is that you're at a party and it's something you can put on the to feel a lot of people are going to watch. And if they walk away and come back later they're still going to be able to enjoy the film. So you know, maybe even have some slow parts that are kind of crappy so they may go get a drink during that but it's not anything you've got to sit down and like stalker or something where even though the movies two and a half hours long, if you miss 10 minutes of it, you might be completely freaking lost, right? The movie I went with was 1995 Tales from the Crypt demon night. Universal Pictures is proud to present the motion picture directing debut of one of America's most talented and respected artists. Hi.

Unknown: 26:18

Oh, hello kitty. So glad you could join me. Your pal The cryptkeeper has gone Hollywood in a big way. I'm directing my first feature film, camera little shriek preview. My big screen premiere. Special Effects. Violence. You could really sink your teeth into chase through the ages. final battle between man and demon. Billy Zane from dead. William Sadler from die and Gina Pinkett from menace to society. I love this title. And you love demon knives. Ladies, if you think de Rosa Yaki Thank you

Kelly: 28:01

excellent.

Eric: 28:02

And rotten tomatoes in this one are interesting. 36 from critics,

Kelly: 28:09

ouch

Eric: 28:09

and 64 from audience even that seems low to me. Yeah, me too, which kind of feeds into the party thing. I'm gonna work. Do you have fun watching this? And like the critics or whatever?

Unknown: 28:20

Right?

Eric: 28:21

The budget was 13 million and it did about 21 million at the box office. It was a hit wasn't a huge hit big enough to spawn a kind of crappy sequel. Yeah. I'll address one of the elephants in the room about this film and is that I was talking to Matt about this. It's first thing he mentioned is and he's right. It's not really a Tales from the Crypt story in that it doesn't have a moral compass. Oh, somebody gets taken out in the end. And so that aside, we'll just call it demonized if that bothers you a lot, as directed by Ernest art Dickerson directing as Ernest Dickerson like what is the point of telling me that dp is also episode directed juice, six episodes of the wire. nine episodes of Dexter, Dexter and just tons and tons of television. Wow. The writer is Ethan roof who wrote the Kung Fu Panda movies. Oh, they're delightful. So you can see the element of fun that he brought to this. Oh, and also Cyrus virus who is co writer just works with him a lot looks like and stars Billy Zane. Yeah. So everybody knows from Back to the Future to critters and Matlock.

Vanessa: 29:46

He's a Matlock

Eric: 29:49

who's pretty young, I'm guessing. And if you know Titanic, I guess he did

Vanessa: 29:55

whatever. He's not the star. He's not a Leo or and Kate Kate.

Eric: 30:02

He's only like three or four on the call. William Sadler hills run read bill and Ted. He's he plays death and Bill and Ted. Yes.

Vanessa: 30:13

I'm sure

Eric: 30:14

he's the hero of the film and john Kay serves and cryptkeeper as the voice of cryptkeeper toward new 37 other credits. Yeah. And a lot of them surprising cartoons. The classic the iconic dick Miller.

Kelly: 30:29

Oh, yeah. And Jada Pinkett

Eric: 30:32

Smith who I looked up it's like to be the only one who ended up writing was the matrix for Yeah, she was in production.

Kelly: 30:42

You know what I always say? What doing the pink one on the stinkin Oh,

Eric: 30:47

anyway, so and also

Unknown: 30:51

make sense? Wait,

Eric: 30:53

don't don't question it. Just move past that. And one of my one of my favorite kind of character actors cch pounder. I just think Is it is it cch or it's my understanding is that they actually say it like that. JOHN shuck and in a attempt to radically change his acting roles, Thomas Haden church playing a raging asshole, right off of wings. So it's like, I don't want to be this happy go lucky, Goofy idiot the rest of my career. It starts off with this weird little mini show. That's like a scene from Tales from the Crypt, but it's being directed by the cryptkeeper. In fixing that doesn't age well. I watched this on a shelf factory's blu ray release. So I don't know maybe maybe even did a little bit disservice. This was a the cryptkeeper in this scene was a guy wearing a green green hood. And they superimposed cryptkeeper over it and it just doesn't work real well. It looks much better when they get back to the real puppet. To the intros and stuff. Love the opening of the movie itself with a great use of Hey, man, nice shot from filter. And really a short but good car chase. For me. Overall, Billy Zane makes this movie. His portrayal of the demon is so much fun and so ridiculous and so strange, that it colors everything else that goes on in the film. I don't think there's a bad note from the actors in this film. Yeah, incredibly well done. They're all really good.

Kelly: 32:32

It doesn't hurt that he's pretty dreamy looking. And he plays this demon. Very seductively. I mean, His voice is so soothing and tell it's not you know, stuff like that. He's, he is great in this he carries. He's really Yes.

Eric: 32:45

Yeah, he is amazing that you're saying the seduction to Jada Pinkett Smith or the scene where he's seducing the hooker. Yeah, and the way he talks to her is just like Jesus, how could you not? films that ridiculously easy setup, this isn't heavy plot driven film, a bunch of people get trapped in a hotel, and they have to figure out a way to get out of it. What I think works really well. In that is one of the problems and we've made fun of it on the show several times with group horror films is what the hell is this guy hanging out with this guy for? And why is this girl hanging out with these assholes. And in this film, that doesn't matter, it's a hotel. So you've got the people that run the hotel, they don't have to like each other. You've got the people who visit the hotel. And you've got this stranger who comes into the mix. So them not getting along and battling with each other and being different, but then working together at the same time. Works. Yeah. And I think that's part of what helps it a lot for me, they come together in ways that makes sense. And the film worth they don't. It's not just suddenly, well, like one of the great humor moments in the movie feast is at the beginning, where they're introducing and here's the hero and then he immediately gets killed. Yeah. They don't set anybody up like that. It's just you figure out who these people are, by the way, they act in a movie, but then they don't take long getting to what what Billy's really up to and what he's after. And so there's just not a lot of wasting time in the film, which is why it's good as a party movie. Because it just gets go it gets up it gets moving. If somebody thinks one of the seduction scenes or whatever is weird, they'll wander away. You wander back when it gets fun again, there's lots of biblical ideas, temptations, demons, blood of Christ are a prevalent part of this film. As a filmmaker, you know, sometimes we watch these movies and you get see those moments where like, ah, smart filmmaking, budgetary save, where they use a little bit of the blood in this Chalice to seal the doors, right? I think only one time they actually show he puts the blood down and the blue or the red film covers the door. And every other time he does it, it's just a red light ray. So you know there's like, that's that's smart, Scream Factory. Have my first major criticism because even the Friday the 13th one didn't bother me too much. The normalizing of the audio on this movie is awful. It goes so loud to so quiet. I'm like, am I watching a 1980s TV series here where the commercials come on? Like, it's really weird.

Kelly: 35:19

Is this something like where the music or something is too loud, but if you turn it down, you can't hear what they're saying. And then I hate that. Yeah, it's just

Eric: 35:29

like, come on. Better than not. There's an end promo at the end of the movie for dead easy.

Kelly: 35:35

Yeah. Kind of like

Eric: 35:39

the end f What was it? Dr. Detroit, it just never came. The film was held and purposely released on Friday the 13th just because they wanted it to be a quote unquote, horror weekend that it was released on. Part of the reason the film came out at all was Tales from the Crypt was a gigantic hit on HBO at this time. And if you haven't gone back and watch those or something and you kind of missed it because he didn't have HBO in the early 90s. rent them check him out. It is an amazing series with some really, really good stuff. The studio originally wanted to cast Cameron Diaz and the role that Jada Pinkett Smith had which I think would have been

Kelly: 36:25

weird. Wow, how interesting.

Eric: 36:28

But the director Ernest Dickinson pushed for Smith and She's the reason she got cast the studio want to do is because she's a name. Obviously. They shot this during the series so a lot of the stuff was shot in between recording the seasons of Tales from the Crypt. The the script had been around for years as a real popular kind of one of those not quite a blacklist but sort of a blacklist kind of script. Part of the reason they hesitated on this was what I said earlier this isn't a Tales from the Crypt story and in the end of the directory, so it's still really good let's just make it free green slime and the D is demons was taken by from glowsticks. The FX crew had to tear this assemble each

Kelly: 37:17

Yeah, I don't feel like having that stuff all over you can be good for you.

Eric: 37:22

I don't think so. Now. Most of the set was constructed in an abandoned airport hangar in Van Nuys, California, which of course makes me think of that song.

Kelly: 37:34

Six 6am song

Eric: 37:36

if you haven't heard it, you like Motley Crue and acoustics go check it out. It's very good. It's not a happy song, but it's doing it. They did it that way because it's all shot at night so they shot inside so they could shoot all the time. Of course, you know, this was not William Sadler's first Tales from the Crypt. His first appearance was in the pilot episode as an executioner and Billy Zane also appeared in the well cooked hams episode of Tales from the Crypt, which I don't know if I've seen that one. Yeah. There's a novelization of the movie that has different scenes. Like the there's a scape tunnel, but there are excuse me, not novelization fell. But the novel plan was based on a book. But But involve heavy tunnels and all this kind of stuff that we don't have the budget to have you running through tunnels and that so well, those are out. Well. So

Kelly: 38:29

this is interesting. So it's based on a book, The screenplay is based on a book. Look, I

Eric: 38:33

took good notes, I answer my own question, seen as one of many scenes that can be found in the novel adaptation based on an earlier draft of the script. Okay. So it is a novelization, most as you know, most of Tales from the Crypt is based on EC comics. And this is not something that original story. The original director was supposed to be Tom Holland. And he was going to make it shortly after Child's Play, but obviously that fell apart. And even put together an FX team to start doing preliminary sketches, but was pulled off of it when his film fatal beauty was a massive bomb in 1987. So actually, it would have been before childsplay. And then next is the script to hand it ran up in the screenwriter from pumpkinhead, who sat with it for several years before giving it to Mary Lambert who directed Pet Cemetery. She passed on it to do pet cemetery to Yeah. The script later went to Charles bands Full Moon features. They didn't make it. But they couldn't figure out a way to make it under their budget constraints. They couldn't make it for 10 grand Charles bands out. Joel Silver was kind of the guy who finally got it off the ground. Didn't made

Kelly: 40:00

and that must be when it turned into a Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, that's okay. Yep.

Eric: 40:06

It was intended to be a second in the trilogy but they went ahead and moved it to the first because dead easy or wasn't ready to go or something? Cuz Yeah, they thought the script had more potential than dead easy or another movie they worked on which they didn't make either was called body count which I don't know either one of those probably would have been a better choice and bordello of blood, right? Entertainment Weekly, Owen Liberman rated at a D plus, is there anything more dis parenting than trash that flaunts its lack of conviction? Like, wow. The Edward Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that. If I were 12, I might have loved it. I have I really have a hard time arguing it gets to that point, actually, cuz if I'd seen this movie when I was 12,

Unknown: 40:57

I would have left.

Eric: 40:59

But then Chris eggersmann ability to such gusting says it's one of the most underrated genre entries of the 90s.

Kelly: 41:06

Didn't we see this together?

Eric: 41:08

I think so.

Kelly: 41:08

Yeah, we went saw this in the theater. And I think we both loved it.

Eric: 41:11

Yeah. So much fun. So you know, to put it on during a party, let people enjoy the stuff they want to enjoy and the few slow moments and reload on their drinks. But you have to worry about people not being able to follow the story.

Kelly: 41:25

I feel like if you're at a party, and this is on you get stuck watching it.

Vanessa: 41:31

Go. I I'm pretty new to tales of from the Crypt in general. So I'm not I might have to use that as a guidepost of this one's good. This one's not so good.

Eric: 41:44

Well, this is not a good one for Tales from guideposts because it doesn't follow the Tales from the Crypt formula at all.

Vanessa: 41:50

Does it at least have the cryptkeeper

Eric: 41:52

Oh, yeah, it's got cryptkeeper it's got the it has the humor Yeah. Or it's got everything just doesn't have the moral

Vanessa: 41:58

right lesson. So it just doesn't have that overall, like feeling right, you know? Yeah. Very cool. Well, um, I'm gonna go ahead and jump right on in with my choice. It's a film I'd never seen before. So I and I was not enthused at all this yet. But I I was definitely turned around on it. And that is Gremlins to the new batch.

Unknown: 42:29

Remember the last time

Strange Aeons: 42:33

we told you not to feed them after midnight? We told you to keep them away from the light. The most important warning of all we told you to never ever get them away.

Unknown: 42:52

You didn't listen. Wow.

Kelly: 43:06

The building on fire? Oh, no. That's a false alarm.

Unknown: 43:13

New York City. Absolutely. So the monsters are real high didn't say that. Gremlins to

Strange Aeons: 43:26

the new batch. Now, was that civilized?

Unknown: 43:29

No. Clearly not fun, but it knows. Nice.

Vanessa: 43:43

Yes. So this is a little 1990 Joint Budget of 50 million bucks office 4.1. Or sorry? 41. Point 5 million.

Kelly: 43:53

Yeah. Wow.

Vanessa: 43:54

Yeah. So interestingly enough, it was actually placed to premiere on the same weekend as Dick Tracy. And the theory, which did you know? And the theory was that Warner Brothers didn't want to have a film beat the Batman record. So they kind of purposely put it on a strange weekend. I don't know. That's what the internet's telling me.

Kelly: 44:22

So, okay.

Vanessa: 44:23

Yeah. Not completely Joe. Don tasteful is where Rotten Tomatoes 71% for critics and 57% for audience. Wow,

Kelly: 44:34

I am disappointed in you audience.

Vanessa: 44:36

Yeah, I was too. I was like, This is such an audience film, which is definitely why I picked it. It's like I said, directed by a Joe Dante, who you guys should know. Obviously from the 10 episodes of Hawaii Five o that he directed.

Kelly: 44:53

I was gonna bring those up. Yeah.

Vanessa: 44:55

Unfortunately, I Gremlins two is kind of the start of the end for him, and he He then did Small Soldiers, and then Looney Tunes Back in Action. So he basically got buried by those. He came back into the hole a couple years ago, which I thought was a totally fine film, but did not save him. So he's mostly been directing TV. Since was it original Hawaii? 500 or the new one? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's in it. Don't worry. He's with our modern times. Actually, Joe, Dante has his hands on a lot of episodes of different shows that you would never expect. So I kind of am curious to see if they like play out differently than others.

Kelly: 45:35

They don't. When I did matinee, a couple months back, I looked at his I mean, he's still a working director in television. That was interesting. But in every show you've ever heard of,

Eric: 45:46

yeah. He's an actual television director is not like a stunt director where they bring like Ryan Tino and the episode look completely different than anything you ever say. Right? Just a good just TV director shows up gets the job done goes home.

Kelly: 45:59

Yeah, and they don't they don't feel like Dante.

Eric: 46:01

No weird,

Vanessa: 46:02

which is such a bummer cuz like I just I enjoy his style a lot. I think he takes some really interesting risks that other filmmakers don't. And unfortunately, like sometimes they don't

Kelly: 46:12

pay off. And, and also television is a writers world, not a director's world. So he doesn't really have the chance to show

Eric: 46:22

that super true again, unless they bring you in like a stunt thing. I still remember watching the Quentin Tarantino er, because it's so different from everything he did before. Or after, but Joe Dante, he knows his job.

Kelly: 46:33

Yeah. TV director. Yeah.

Vanessa: 46:37

It's kind of like, um, this is George Miller who did Snow Dogs. And it's like, you know, you write for you. You go for the audience. Yes. That's what yeah. So speaking of writers, and on it, the writer was Charles S. Haas, who wrote matinee over the edge and Tron. Originally, they wanted the, the main writer from the original film, but he decided to take up. Oh my god, sorry, I can't read this scribe every

Eric: 47:11

macro man.

Vanessa: 47:16

Um, oh, he was, I can't find it.

Kelly: 47:20

Just so the audience knows. The sun is so blinding in here. Yeah. Vanessa is trying to actually read her screen

Eric: 47:26

for us through a pair of sunglasses.

Unknown: 47:29

Yeah.

Vanessa: 47:30

Yeah. And it's reflective to my screens, like one of those like MacBook Pros with the like, super shiny. This is such a nightmare. Just let's say that the film that he chose to write on was really bad. I know that. So take those you will. We also had Chuck Jones as a writer on it. He came back out of Looney Tunes retirement to write the opening and ending segments which the film begins and this was not giving me much hope. On some Looney Tunes cartoon array where Daffy takes over from bugs, the intro scene and then at the end, he kind of does an outro to so

Eric: 48:12

what you got against Daffy Duck?

Vanessa: 48:13

i? Nothing. It's just such a different tonal piece. To what Anyway, it was produced by amblin Entertainment, so Spielberg had a pretty big hand in it. Starring Zach Galligan, as Billy, you may remember him from Gremlins. The first he's had a pretty rough career. But he did do one episode of the net TV show, so there's hope for him. He actually has done 76 credits, but that's just all completely unremarkable. Unfortunately. Phoebe Cates as Kate Kate the girlfriend, she came back for this as well. She has 19 credits in you might remember her from drop dead Fred. After that. She actually kind of fell out of doing films and went back into theater and married Kevin Kline. Which was interesting to me. So and then john Glover as Daniel clamp, the crazy CEO slash tech wunderkind, owner of the clamp building. This guy's been in 133 pieces, including playing soccer scene and mouth of madness.

Kelly: 49:25

Yeah. Nice.

Vanessa: 49:26

And then we have quite a few, like, there's quite a few other people who kind of pop up in this, which is pretty cool. But you know, just it's interesting, because they're all sort of character actors, I'd say. So you have Robert passkey as grandpa Fred who's playing this kind of like horror TV shows. He's been in 77 things including Christine as the like, guy who owns the shop. I was like, yeah, we're gonna represent I know you. And Christopher Christopher Lee. In this film, you may or may not know him, and he's been in 282 things. But I'm personally my favorite the voice of does from Kingdom Hearts, the video game series. So, yeah, definitely made a mark for himself in the world off of some video game acting. And then the huge surprise for me and I did not know he was going to be in it was Robert picardo who plays the chief of security in this like crazy, smart, smart building, essentially and Robert picardo he's one of my favorite actors. He plays the doctor from Voyager. I didn't realize what a prolific actor he is. He has 234 credits. And I guess I now have a reason to watch Stargate because apparently he was in that too. So I never knew your this series actually to this areas. So I had no idea. So the film Oh, one other thing Howie Mandel plays Gizmo. I was like wait, like I don't know a lot about how we Mandela other than like his current life because my mom has him on TV a lot. But I was like, Oh my god, you're a guest.

Kelly: 51:14

He used to in his act. He used to have a little boy voice that was really Bobby squeaky. I think so. Yeah.

Vanessa: 51:22

Because he did Bobby's world, right. And I remember watching that as a kid and hating it. So I don't know. Leave a good impression.

Kelly: 51:29

But yeah, he does. funny noises Oh,

Vanessa: 51:34

I wish he did the more he's just gets to be a very opinion. He was the dick judge this this season because Simon Cowell was sick a bunch. Anyway,

Eric: 51:44

I don't think I'm familiar with the show. But All right, go ahead. America's Got Talent. Doesn't sound like that's what america's got.

Kelly: 51:50

Nick. Yeah, just we're gonna have to bring in the dick judge. Yeah,

Vanessa: 51:54

getting in alternative. And so the story is bonkers. I, I guess the main plot. I don't know. There's nothing about this. That isn't bonkers. So gizmos home, the magic collectible store in Chinatown in New York, is destroyed after the owner passes on. In the rubble gizmos captured and brought to a lab in the clamp Center, a state of the art high rise building in Manhattan owned by eccentric billionaire Daniel clamp, who's kind of a mix of who's based on Ted Turner meets Donald Trump, which is kind of a unfortunate mix. But that's okay. He's actually a super fun character, I will give him that. And it just so happens that Billy and Kate are both working at that building in sort of like entry level jobs there. We'll try to like climb the corporate ladder in this ridiculous building setting. And in the building houses like a ton of different companies. So they have like a genetics lab, but they also have a TV studio. They have a movie theater, they have this architecture firm business, which is where Billy's ended up as at and Billy overhears, like delivery guy humming the gizmo song. And he's like, wait a minute, something's amiss. Did you hear that? And he's like, I heard it in the genetics lab. And he's like, I'm on to the genetics club. I go. And sure enough, he finds Gizmo and rescues him, and then hides him in a drawer. And unfortunately, he gets noticed by the office manager who insists they go out to dinner that night, so he can't get Gizmo home. So he asked Kate, his girlfriend to go ahead and take him home for him. In the meantime, several hours passed while Kate finishes up her job. And let's just say maybe he gets what? Maybe.

Kelly: 53:53

No,

Vanessa: 53:54

no. And so four little dudes pop up and of course start torturing Gizmo. Gizmo gets, like thrown into like the air duct units of the building. And they're one of the ones that popped off of him looks a lot like him, but he's like, super loony. Anyway, so Kate apparently has no clue what Gizmo is actually like and grabs the wrong one. And she's like, Gizmo, you're so crazy. And put them in the apartment. Of course, Billy comes home. And he's like, Oh, no, this is not right. And figures it out pretty quickly that something must have happened. They rush over the building. And they try to convince the security team that they need to like turn off all the water pipes, they need to evacuate the building. Because there's these creatures that have these three rules. And of course, the security team. It's like, what the EFF You're so stupid. And there's this really beautiful scene where it's so clear that Joe Dante is like all the people who gave me shit about this. three rules. Don't Don't eat past midnight don't get wet. And now I'm forgetting the last one. No sunlight. Thank you no sunlight. Who were like, Well, what about if you cross this time zones? And does the midnight things still apply? They actually start just railing on this kid with all these questions that easily, you don't understand. And then sure enough, the creatures have managed to get wet, they have developed and mutated and they break into the security room and eat them to eat these people. So the building just it it just more and more and more and more Gremlins appear. And now the goal is to keep them all contained in the building so they don't get loose in New York City, which is definitely not because of budget. And in the meantime, they're doing crazy things they take over like a microwave TV Channel show, which is super delightful. There's like a film critic who's like making fun of Gremlins the original film and then you know, gramling comes in and messes with him. It's very cute. There's just a I the writing is so it's like a million miles a minute of just jokes and and plugs and you will miss it. You will you have to watch it like five times, because there's just so much amazing stuff being slid in there. The Gremlins managed to get back into the genetics lab, and several of them just start drinking random things much to Christopher Lee's horror, and they transform into some of the iconic Gremlins to Gremlins, including Brainiac, an electrical circuit Gremlin, a giant spider and a woman female lady Gremlin, who is fantastic. Oh my god has anyone ever owned their sexuality this Gremlin does. She's She's hot but she's great. She knows that she owns it. She Fanta it's great. Um, so of course Kate and Billy teamed up with the office of the office manager chick who had taken Billy out on a dinner that turned into something he did not want it to be the owner of the building the crazy CEO guy, the horror TV show host and the head of security all kind of get together to try and figure out what to do with these Gremlins. And the main idea is hopefully to trick them into being exposed to sunlight before they can get out. It's just oh my god, this film is so good. I thought it was gonna be crap. I thought it was gonna be so bad because I've only ever heard bad things about it. And the first Gremlins film like I I like a lot, but it's also kind of can be in a way that I I don't enjoy as much. And I feel like this film was just so smart. And just so clever that I couldn't even with the crazy stuff that was happening that was zany. It was still really intelligent in the way that I would say like something like Robocop is it really reminded me of that sort of like 80s brutalist nonsense humor. So what makes it a great party movie? Like I said, it's insane. Literally, every second you watch this film, something fucking bizarre is going. So I think it would definitely catch people's eyes. It moves at a pretty good pace. And it's also simple enough that if you were like super drunk or stoned, you would still like pretty much understand what's going on. Yeah, totally. 100% Yes, absolutely. It's definitely just a cartoon. And it's just such a celebratory fun film all the way through like the Gremlins are having such a good time. Even we were like, No, don't do that. You're also like, yes, but also do that. It's like so the writing is amazing. And creature effects are really, really good. Really, really good in this. And the Dr. Robert picardo is so good in this. I was just like, I love you as a human being Oh, you're the best. Christopher Lee isn't in it for super long, but when he is he is super fun. The character that he plays has a very silly name, which is Dr. Cushing catheter, which is just silly. And at one point, like one of the Gremlins turns into this sort of like bat creature and it's just all very on the nose. So yes, you know, it really did. It's interesting because the I can't get Robocop out of my head. And I wrote down here, brutalist, fantastical 80s business architectural world smart building nonsense. Take that as you will. Yeah, the only thing I didn't like about it is that the the actual girlfriend not the female Gremlin, but the actual girlfriend kbk Batman. She's back characters. She just sucked. I hated her so much because she was just dumb and like, throughout the first probably third to half of the film, she's kind of like useless and annoying and a way that is very commonly like written for girls like they're the ones who are gonna scream when this real killers running after them right? Like she just is like, I don't know Gremlins are bad. And now, this one is really zany. But I guess it's Gizmo and oh, like that. And then at some point, she kind of becomes like tolerable, but for a lot of it, I was very frustrated with her. But I do think they make up for that with the female Gremlin stuff. And the other thing I didn't like I as I mentioned before, was the Looney Tunes segments. I felt like those were a bit. I don't know. They felt shoehorned. I'm sure they were shoehorned because it was like their 100th anniversary, so I don't know some kind of crazy thing. I

Eric: 1:00:54

don't remember that at all.

Kelly: 1:00:56

Yeah, I don't either. That's funny.

Vanessa: 1:00:57

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So just a couple of small pieces of trivia about it, and you guys probably already know this, but, uh, Joe Dante originally turned down during the sequel because he felt like the first one how to perfectly fine ending and he had no interest in continuing something that he felt like ended. Plus, it was super taxing to do the first one. He was really tired, and he just wanted to move on from the entire thing. So the studio actually started making the film without him, but they struggled to find a good story. Like I got really zany. They were like, how about Las Vegas? How about the planet Mars? Two actual pitches. Wow. And finally, he agreed to come back, but only under the vice that he had complete creative control. And he got triple the budget. So yeah, so he was able to do everything in anything he wanted in that film, except it was a lot longer and then Spielberg, I guess walked in and was like, No, you have to cut these like five scenes. So there's apparently a ton of Gremlins too on the cutting room floor somewhere. Dante men imagine that Gremlins to was going to be kind of more of a satire piece. And that's why we have the critic being mocked and attacked by the Gremlins. And they break the third wall a fair amount to where the Gremlins like break the film and put on a nudie film called volleyball holiday. And of course, then the famous scene of Hulk Hogan yelling, and putting the film back on in the theater shows up, which was beautiful, I guess, actually, it's really neat. So when the Gremlins take over, it looks like the film is broken. And in the VHS version, they did a VHS version of this, where it like went to that sort of ant static thing with them coming in. And don't take out a lot of kind of pushback for this scene as far as the film went, because they were afraid people would walk out of the theater and think the film was over. So he did a test screening and nobody did. And they thought it was delightful. So he's like, no, not taking it out. It's

Eric: 1:03:06

fast. Do you think people get up and go?

Vanessa: 1:03:11

Exactly. Like this is broken. And there's another film on? Don't worry about two seconds and the Gremlins take over. This special effects was done by Chris Wallace who did

Eric: 1:03:24

16 minutes guy.

Vanessa: 1:03:26

I'm trying to read this so hard, guys, you don't even know oofta the special effects Okay, this is why the guy who did the first movie special effects was not available because he was doing fly too. So Oh, scratch what I said about the writer I miss labelled it. So Rick Baker was asked to do it. Rick Baker originally said he was completely uninterested because he didn't you wouldn't get to do anything fun. Like all the creatures were already made. Like all the ideas were in place and he didn't want to just carry it on. And that's why they gave him those four specialty critters of which he actually gave names to which is lovely. So we have a they're never used, but the black and white one with a stripe is George he's a caricature, I guess of Edward G Robinson.

Kelly: 1:04:20

mobster guy.

Vanessa: 1:04:21

Oh, okay, gotcha. And then you have Lenny who's like the buck tooth Gremlin, who's the dumb one who is I believed excellent. taken home and he's based off of a character from Of Mice and Men. Yeah. And then there's Daffy who's just named for Daffy mainnet manic behavior, and then Mohawk because of Mohawk who is clearly just stripe, wears it stripe or spike stripe from the first one. But they he wanted control. He wanted something fun. So they went ahead and gave it to him. Shut up. Are these fine? Gizmo was also slightly redesigned. I didn't notice it, but I guess there was some kind of change in him.

Eric: 1:05:10

He got himself a little bandana and a little bow and arrow.

Vanessa: 1:05:14

That's true. And by the way, they actually got permission from Sylvester Stallone to have him intimidate, Rambo. Um, fun fact, the opening New York City shot was actually from Superman for quest for peace. Oh, yeah, they just cut that back in there. Tim Curry was considered for the voice of the brain Gremlin, which I kind of wish he'd done because that's super fun. This is kind of fascinating to me this, there's this like, moment where the CEO is like, I'm gonna put on the tape put on the tape. And it's this. So the world is ending. Oh, thank you for being on this journey with us with the new station. And apparently this is something that new stations have. So it's based off of one from CNN which apparently is in its archive and they're ready to pull out at any moment.

Eric: 1:06:03

So sort of like they have every like you'll eulogies or whatever for famous people that they've put together for when they die. They've got something ready to go.

Vanessa: 1:06:12

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So like, as they're running out the door. Somebody can just pop this in and be taken care of. Christopher Lee when he showed up on the first day apologize for being in the howling to

Unknown: 1:06:27

feel pretty

Kelly: 1:06:27

bad about it. Alright, cuz Dante directed that

Vanessa: 1:06:30

Yeah, absolutely. And this one also helped to create the PG 13 rating. It was one of the first homes with Gremlins. Oh, well then tell IMDb to go stuff itself.

Eric: 1:06:42

pG 13 started because of Gremlins and Indiana Jones.

Vanessa: 1:06:46

There you go.

Eric: 1:06:47

So we've been around for what? Four or five years at that.

Vanessa: 1:06:50

Yeah. Weird. Okay, cool. I'm Thank you for letting me know that.

Eric: 1:06:54

I had a weird obsession with that when it happened. Like flamingos was the first one to get a PG 13. But Red Dawn was the first to actually be released in theaters under pG 13. Sure. Yeah.

Vanessa: 1:07:04

We talked about

Eric: 1:07:06

Wow, definitely not Gremlins. Well, I

Vanessa: 1:07:08

appreciate the clarification for sure. Because I don't know like I don't know who contributes to this stuff. So you always have to take it with a grain of salt the internet. I didn't talk to Dante. One on one so and then last but not least, I found it very cute that Dante apparently prefers Gremlins to two Gremlins.

Kelly: 1:07:29

I think this movie is absolutely delightful. Yeah, I didn't like it the first time I saw it because I wanted you know the original Gremlins. So the original Gremlins movie is kind of scary. Yeah, and this is not at all

Vanessa: 1:07:43

No. So Wes Oh zany.

Kelly: 1:07:45

But I came to love it on subsequent viewings and I got what they were trying to do and Dante has said, You know, I didn't want to make that same movie. I think you would do yourself a disservice if you do not find the episode of Key and Peele where they do the pitch meeting for this movie.

Vanessa: 1:08:04

I actually I really need to watch that like on the car read before I driveway because I was thinking about that. I was like, I remember seeing that but I hadn't seen Gremlins too, so I didn't know what they're talking about. I also think you do yourself a disservice if you watch Gremlins and Gremlins two back to back.

Kelly: 1:08:21

Yeah.

Eric: 1:08:23

And I I loved Gremlins when it first came out is a huge movie for me when I was young. I hated Gremlins to sure completely I mean, I didn't just dislike I hated it. I don't think I've watched it since but I know when I watch it again. I'm going to love it. Yeah, cuz I know what's going on in it now and I know that that appeals to my sensibilities? Well that it is now that I've not worried not giving a shit that it's not anything like Gremlins. I

Vanessa: 1:08:48

think when you're a kid you know you're you're in it for all the like zany and crazy. But as an adult, the jokes are so good and clever and fast and constant that like, like there's the the building has constant announcements that are going on in the background. And they're freaking hilarious and like airplane.

Unknown: 1:09:09

Yes.

Vanessa: 1:09:10

But it's like it's so subtle. You don't quit you can so easily miss it. And pretty much anybody who walks past will be saying something ridiculous. Every TV will have something strange on it. Like all the smart devices in the smart building are all broken. It's just really clever.

Kelly: 1:09:29

Yes, brilliant satire. I'm so glad that you'd like this.

Vanessa: 1:09:33

I was like there's no way like this was recommended to me and I was like there's no way I'm gonna pick it but

Eric: 1:09:38

I guess I should watch it closer and closer to fully grasping the so bad. It's good movies,

Kelly: 1:09:44

except that one is legitimately good. Okay, well that brings it to me. I chose a movie called sleepwalkers.

Strange Aeons: 1:10:04

Charles Brady is new in town.

Unknown: 1:10:06

You can actually talk to him. Yeah, he's nice. Real nice.

Strange Aeons: 1:10:12

The girls all like him. The teachers all respect him.

Unknown: 1:10:18

Your teachers and our our Mr. pinsider lose such a creative young man.

Strange Aeons: 1:10:22

The parents all trust him is

Unknown: 1:10:25

utterly

Strange Aeons: 1:10:26

charming. But nobody really knows him.

Unknown: 1:10:31

Like his mother, you cannot be

Kelly: 1:10:39

behind this

Strange Aeons: 1:10:39

smile is a secret.

Unknown: 1:10:43

I have something for

Strange Aeons: 1:10:44

you. I don't know who you are. But I know you're not who you say you are. The secret is a hunger doesn't have to be her. behind it all is the imagination of Stephen King. He killed one of my men.

Unknown: 1:11:11

He was scared.

Strange Aeons: 1:11:29

Stephen King. sleepwalking sleepwalkers?

Eric: 1:11:40

I have never heard of this. Stephen King one. I'm

Kelly: 1:11:43

surprised you haven't heard of this? Yeah. 1992. Nice. It had a budget of $15 million in a box office of 31 million

Eric: 1:11:52

15,000,550. Sorry, the one

Kelly: 1:11:56

and only a box office of 31 million. So it made its money back. But I think that this is one of those movies that I hated when I first saw it and have grown to just love. I keep giving it another chance for some reason and pretty. Pretty soon. I was like, You know what? I've watched this once a year. Why do I think I hate it? I actually liked this movie quite a bit. The critics though, on Rotten Tomatoes. Not so much. 20 29% Oh, the audience though. Has it a 31%.

Vanessa: 1:12:31

That's really taken it back.

Kelly: 1:12:33

It was directed by Mick garris who has 32 credits, including the standard miniseries The Shining desperation bag of bones and was the creator of the masters of horror Showtime series.

Eric: 1:12:46

Would you like to clarify the shiny one so nobody gives you a hard time

Kelly: 1:12:49

this shining miniseries. It was written by Stephen King. Ever heard of this guy? No. He has 314 credits on IMDB mostly as based on a story by 26 of those are right now in various states of production or pre production, including the stand as an actor, he has 25 credits. He was a night writers. He was in an episode of Frasier and he was in the Drew Barrymore Jimmy Fallon vehicle fever pitch.

Eric: 1:13:21

Does he play himself? Usually when he does though? Yes.

Vanessa: 1:13:25

Can I just say, if you haven't seen it, watch the episode of quantum leap with Steven Kane. It is by far my favorite as Oh, wow. Okay.

Unknown: 1:13:35

Cool.

Kelly: 1:13:35

The stars Brian Krauss, who has 118 credits, including 145 episodes of charmed, which I never watched, but that's a pretty good run. He was in the toolbox murders to alien rising and a Queen's rake video. It also stars match and amic was 77 credits. She was on Gilmore Girls she is Betty's mom on Riverdale, but she's probably best known for her stint on Twin Peaks as Shelley. Yeah, and it also stars Alice Krieg, who has 106 credits, including just recently Carnival row. Also just recently, Gretel and Hansel, she's the witch in that. And she was the Borg queen in Star Trek first panto,

Vanessa: 1:14:18

okay. It's funny because now that you said that I didn't put that together when I watched gradel or Hansel and Gretel Hansel but

Kelly: 1:14:25

I'm assuming she's under a lot of makeup. She's

Vanessa: 1:14:30

got a medium amount of makeup, like maybe a hair dye and some some like dramatic makeup but nothing crazy. Okay.

Kelly: 1:14:38

The opening scene of this is particularly ghoulish. I really enjoy it, but if you are a cat lover, you might have some issues with it. You might have some issues with this movie in general, if you're a cat lover. Oh, the scene is these two cops, one of whom was played by Mark Hamill. Going into a house and it is the prior house Are antagonists in this film. I'll get to that though in a little bit. And there it is covered in dead cats that are dead cats hanging from trees. Oh, they're dead cats. Everywhere cats on the lawn. Some of them are caught in traps. They're lying on the sidewalk hanging from the porch. And Mark Hamill and his other his partner come in. And they are like, Oh my god, what's going on here and they stumble into the open, open a door, a closet door, and this ancient looking corpse falls out, all dried, mummified and everything, but you realize very quickly that it is the corpse of a young girl. And they're like, oh, boom. Later this year, Mark Hamill would take on the role of the Joker on Batman The Animated Series and his life got exponentially better revitalize his career. So when I say antagonists in this film, it's very interesting, because the leads are the bad guys. You love these movies? It's Well, I think that that is the failing of this movie. And why it doesn't do very well is that the leads are the bad guys. And you see the most growth through the bad guys here and Shelley or I can't remember what her name is in this. But match dynamics character should be the lead in this and she is not here so they've got a real writing problem in this. So just a little backstory, we are introduced to Charles and his mother Mary who are sleepwalkers. They're nomadic shapeshifting energy vampires who feed off the life force of young virgin women. They normally maintain a human form, but they can transform into human sized. I guess you would call them were cats.

Vanessa: 1:17:02

Oh my god. What? Wait, they're vampires and their workout? Their psychic vampires, I

Kelly: 1:17:07

guess? Well, no, they're energy vampires. So their energy, they suck the life force out of you. They don't suck like I am. But they still need it to be a virgin. Okay. So

Vanessa: 1:17:18

because it has to be pure life force,

Kelly: 1:17:20

right? They have both telekinetic powers, and can cast like, illusion spells I guess. And they are they are deathly afraid of cats. And they also a mother and son have a unusual relationship in that they are down to fuck and we find this out. We find this out in the very first scene.

Vanessa: 1:17:45

Oh my god. All right. I don't know if I can see this.

Kelly: 1:17:50

So Charles has they've moved from this last house we saw at the beginning into this new town and Charles looks like a teenage boy and this is how he gets the teenage virgin girls is he goes to school. He's a handsome kid. And he he feigns interest in you know, a good girl. And and then eater.

Vanessa: 1:18:15

This is like the plot of Twilight.

Kelly: 1:18:17

It is a little white lady. So he has gone to the school and he has met matching AMEC and, you know strikes up a a conversation with her and can tell that she's you know, a good girl and we are kind of told that pretty early on to She's got some I don't want to select shame, but she's got some slutty friends. And they are making fun of her because she's still a virgin. So, this this happens in high school, right?

Vanessa: 1:18:46

Um, um, I know, I don't think girls talk about sex or periods as often as guys think they didn't

Kelly: 1:18:53

Well, I just assumed

Vanessa: 1:18:56

maybe it's just me, I don't want to speak for all high school girls.

Kelly: 1:19:00

Also, there's some, there's some pretty on this viewing, there's some pretty good writing going on in that his mom is at home and she is starving. You know, when we get the idea that she's starving for this energy that they need to feed on. And he tells her, you know that he's met a girl and she says, Is she a good girl? And it never really dawned on me what she was saying, I would have gotten that immediately. I just really liked it. Because he says, I think so. And I was like, Oh, she's a good girl. I get it now. And so on their first date, they go to do some grave rubbings at a local cemetery. And and he then attacks her and tries to suck her life energy out and she manages to to scratch him and get away from him and all this stuff. But and she is saved by this police officer. Earlier in the film we see the cop this This kid drives this really nice 1986 or four trans-am Firebird you know, like basically a smoking the bandit car only in this really beautiful blue. And he likes to drive very fast and so the cops are after him and he he tears through a bus, school bus that has you know, the lights flashing and kids walking in front and he just guns it and doesn't hit any of the kids. But that's how we know he's not a very nice guy, you know, and the COP is chasing him and this while the cop for whatever reason has a cat with him. Clovis cat is adorable too. This is a good looking cat. And when he pulls up next, you know neck and neck with this kid driving is Trans Am trying to get him to pull over. The kid is like making fun of him and everything. Well, the cat pops his head up and all of a sudden the kid is like terrified. And he starts going through the shapeshifting thing and the top is like the fuck. And the cat is hissing at him because the cat instinctually knows that. Yes, these things are bad. And he loses them. And it's because the guy the kid can cast these weird, telekinetic, glamorous but yeah, and so he pulls around the corner makes the car invisible, the cop goes by. And then when he comes back, the car is no longer that trans-am it is now a red Mustang. So now he can drive away and get away from the get. So then this cop comes across the the car, because it has reverted back to its transit himself after the kid got hurt in the cemetery sees the car, and he and Clovis go to investigate. And they save the girl from this guy but not before the COP is killed. And the guy is chased off by Clovis the cat. And there is kind of a touching scene that I didn't really expect to hit me this hard but he the COP is laying dead on the ground and Clovis wanders up and sits on his chest and I was like I'm increasingly more weepy these days. It might not be as good as seen as I think. It's pretty good. Anyway, from that moment on now the story is on. This kid has got to get matching man match. And I wish I I'm just going to call her Shelley because that's how I do. There you go. And so he's he's injured very badly, though, because the cat scratches are like super deadly to them. So he wanders back to his house and collapses there and mom is like, Oh my god, that fucking bitch. I'm gonna go take care of this myself. And so she goes to the house of Shelly and her parents and proceeds to kill everybody and kidnap Shelly. And she drags Shelley back to the house and then makes her dance with her dying son, who we thought was dead already. But I think that she's just telekinetically making him dance. It's super, super creepy. And poor Shelley is just. And this chick Mattson amic is right off of let's see the 92. So this is right off of twin peaks. She is acting her ass off. She is so fucking good at this movie that you're like, wow, I wish anybody else in this movie thought they were in the same movie as her. Because this would have been Oscar winning. I mean, she's amazing in this. So then the cops come? Well, actually what happens is the cats come Clovis has kind of rounded up an army of feline. And they're all waiting on the lawn and some pretty great scenes that I mean, if you were to look out and see this, even if you're a cat lover, you would be creeped the fuck out. Because there's literally hundreds of cats just sitting on the lawn. Oh my god.

Vanessa: 1:24:01

How did the filmmakers get this? Get into that?

Unknown: 1:24:03

Wow.

Kelly: 1:24:08

So I won't give it all away. But the whole thing is that they have to feed off of Shelley's virgin power, and she has to, you know, rise up and be the warrior woman that she is meant to be. And it doesn't quite work, because we're never given her as our main character. Yeah. So I mean, we are definitely given the mom and the son as our main character. It's

Eric: 1:24:32

interesting that we talked about the hunger earlier. And it sounds like you're sort of talking about a movie like that, where Susan Sarandon as given a strong enough hero that she's able to overcome the David Bowie's Yeah, those characters, you've got the same dynamics except that writer didn't pull off, making her strong enough to overcome the two villains

Kelly: 1:24:54

well, and the hunger is a exercise in subtlety whereas I'm Not sure that the garrison knows what that he puts the B and subtle. Anyhow, it's got a really great ending with a lot of cats attacking and cars crashing into trees, all sorts of stuff like that. Okay. I'll get into some notes here. Oh, it's not Shelley. It's Tanya. I did write it down here. She plays Tanya. Tanya his parents are played by the exact same actors who play Ferris Bueller's parents. Oh my god. And I thought that was interesting. And so I dug a little deeper. They met on the set of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, married. Oh, my God. And were husband and wife. They divorced shortly after this movie. Oops. Oh, bomber. acid. Yeah. The House of the sleepwalkers is the same house that was used on The Waltons. Mm hmm. I thought that was interesting. To get the cats to attack food was hidden on the actors. Sure, yes, the cats would jump from a platform. And the way they got them to do because there's a lot of cat action going on in here the way they did. It was all through foods. There was a special cat unit. The guy who trained the cats were there doing all of this stuff. And you see a lot of cat violence. Of course, when you see that he it's all fake cats and stuff like that. It says various times in the film cats are shown hovering about the outside of the sleepwalkers house, food was usually placed in key areas to attract the cats and sometimes the cats would move from A to B responding to buzzers so just like when you train a dog with the click or something like that. So they would just you know hit this little buzzer and the cats would go oh fuck food. They would all just go tearing Oh my god. All the scenes were shot on a Motion Picture studio lot. I'm not sure why it was written that way. I will just say all the scenes were shot in the studio. And the area where the cats worked was fenced off so that they wouldn't just take off because even though there's food everything that you know, yeah, that's gonna do okay, it's gonna do special filming unit called the cat unit would work separately from the unit with the actors. And this unit would concentrate on just cat activities. And close ups of cats. Such as cats hissing, they had special cats that were trained to hiss. Oh my god, that the trainers would actually make hissing noises and then the cats would hiss at them. Yes, so absolutely. So that's how that was done. This movie is fun in that there's there's so much fucking weird shit going on. This movie does not make a lot of sense. There's a cameo by King Of course in it. But there's also a cameo by Joe Dante by Clive Barker. And by now I can't remember who the third one was. Oh, what's his name? who directed American Werewolf in London? JOHN Landis? Yeah,

Eric: 1:27:58

Mick garris. You

Kelly: 1:27:59

know, hey, buddies. Right? Right. So john Landis shows up in this and manages to not kill anybody on this. The stuff that's gonna make you pause while you're This is going on in the background. You're at the party and everything and then you're good to go. I thought that was a mom and son. Because there are a couple of sex scenes in this.

Unknown: 1:28:23

Oh my god.

Kelly: 1:28:27

In his defense, Alice Creek is smokin hot. So you know, you kind of get it. Oh, also, if you've had cats, you know, you got to get them fixed early on, or they they will regret a little incestuous themselves. They kind of made sense to me. I didn't understand why these were some kind of cat monsters that were mortal enemies with cats. It seemed like dogs might have been the appropriate thing for them to be worried about but for whatever reason. This is based on a Stephen King novel that he never finished. And I don't know there's a lot of coke going on in this time. And Mick had just finished the cycle for movie did you guys ever see that one? It's it's actually pretty decent Henry Thomas as as norm Norman. And I think the king saw this movie and said, Ah, this guy can portray incestuous relationships with the Deaf and I think that's how he got this movie but what a break for MC because he then went on to be Steve's go to guy for directing any of this stuff. So yeah.

Unknown: 1:29:47

Wow. Oh

Vanessa: 1:29:48

my god. Well, you really for your pick. I feel like you really went for the shock value. Well, not

Kelly: 1:29:55

I wasn't sure what to do both of your movies or movies that I want. would actually stop if it was playing on a TV and watch because that's just how those movies grabbed me. I thought of, you know, some other stuff that was bigger and more bombastic. And then I was like, Wait a second, sleepwalkers is weird. Yeah. And, and I think that it does not get a lot of love. So I'm here to say this movie is bad, but maybe not as bad as you remember.

Unknown: 1:30:24

Nice. Sounds good.

Vanessa: 1:30:27

glowing endorsement.

Kelly: 1:30:28

Yeah. So. So who's got the next genre pick?

Vanessa: 1:30:31

I believe that's me.

Kelly: 1:30:33

I believe that's you also. Yeah. So

Vanessa: 1:30:36

my challenge for y'all is going to be to do a film that features small towns.

Kelly: 1:30:47

Small Town horror, is that what we're getting at? Yes. Okay. Absolutely.

Vanessa: 1:30:51

But it can't just be that they like drive through a small town or it takes place in a small town. It's gotta have like,

Unknown: 1:30:57

you know,

Vanessa: 1:30:57

moments. So

Eric: 1:30:58

like an example. We've probably none of us would probably pick his Children of the Corn or something like, right,

Vanessa: 1:31:03

exactly. Then in the main character doesn't need to be the town. Like, it doesn't have to be like, oh, and everybody's watching them. And it's actually just the town but like, it should be featured heavily

Kelly: 1:31:16

in it. Okay, I thought you were gonna say that thing I hate so much. You know? Really, New York is one of the characters in this film.

Unknown: 1:31:24

Oh, God,

Kelly: 1:31:25

fuck you

Unknown: 1:31:26

now.

Vanessa: 1:31:27

Not that. Not like that. Hopefully you guys wouldn't do that. Anyway, the building and this really has so much personality.

Kelly: 1:31:35

I like this idea. Okay, so small town horror for next week, you guys. As usual, thanks to everybody who's liking sharing all of that stuff. Really, really appreciate it. I listened to the last episode and I got a kick out of hearing. Jason weiss's thing for Jason Weis is five star review. So keep sending those five star reviews and because we have more of those songs that we play also. Yes. Okay. So that's it. We'll see you next week by our shows recorded somewhere high above Naval Station Everett at the nexus of all realities, and is engineered and produced by Eric Margaret. Our theme music is Strange Aeons part one by the band Nightshade is used with permission. Find Strange Aeons radio on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, wherever find podcasts