289 BIG BUGS!

289 BIG BUGS!
The gang talks film festivals and readings before getting all creepy crawly with giant insects!
Also discussed: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Blink Twice, and a fundraising screening for Scarecrow Video

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition. We have such sights to show you strange eons. Welcome to strange eons. Radio. That is Eric over there. Hello, that is Vanessa over there. Hello, I'm Kelly. And hey, so nice to see you guys live and in person. I know it's been so long. Yeah, it's always, always nicer. Yeah, it's great that Zoom can let us do what we can do. But yes, always better here. Absolutely, you guys, as we record this, we are only about a week or as we, as you listen to this, we're only about a week away from the HP Lovecraft Film Festival. Oh, my God, Portland, Oregon. So that's always, you know, when I Eric and my favorite things to attend. But this year kind of special, my first reading ever as an author. So I'll be reading a chunk of the secret language of spiders. I'm super nervous about this, but I know it's gonna be fun. I used to get up on stage and sing in front of hundreds of people, so it'll be fun. Channel your inner John skip, because, you know, he gives some of the best readings I've ever been to. So, you know, read towards that, yeah. Well, the cool thing, I guess, this year, is they are having the readings at the sonder bar, that bar that we went to. And I was like, Oh well, I'm just gonna get myself a drink and have a good time. Oh yeah, that's the that's actually an ideal little setup, like hanging out a bar and like, are you gonna just be in the corner on a stool or something? No idea how it works. You should make a drink while you're telling the story. Let me tell you the tale. Usually smoke cigarettes, but if you have bourbon and like a cigarette between your fingers or some scotch, and tell you folks, this is Portland, Oregon, I don't think they can let you within 25 feet of an establishment if you've got something smoking, Candy cigarette, Candy cigarette. But I figured, you know, these things are not very well attended. The readings My mind is probably not going to be attended at all. But if you're stuck in that bar and I just start reading, you get a free story. I guess I just, in my brain cannot get rid of the opening scene from the fog, and I just envision these children sitting around like all right, kids gather in we're gonna talk about, well, yeah, so I'm looking very forward to that and excited about that. And I'm gonna have a couple of copies of my new novella, which comes out next month, which is called a distant silver melody. And I will also have a couple of copies of a very groovy little project that I've been cooking up with Rob Corliss over the last couple years. And it is fun. It is super cool looking so and it is very well not Lovecraftian, but Robert James or chambers. Ian, nice, so have you seen a test copy? I guess you'd call it Yeah. You'll want to check this one out. Yeah, I'll bring one of those up on the next episode. Probably. Eric, yes. Speaking of film festivals, we have a film that is getting into film festivals. Yeah, the scum dance film festival down in San Francisco. Excellent. Sounds lovely. The guy running it has been wonderfully kind to us and saying that it is one of his favorite short films, and really hopes he doesn't. I don't think he does award voting, but he's like, Man, I hope it wins. He's some cool awards. And even has a radio interview where he wanted this, the short, to be featured, so he asked for a link so he could show it to the guys are interviewing him on the radio. And I gotta tell you, man, if you're in San Francisco, go see scum dance, right? It sounds like it sounds kind of bone bat esque. I don't exactly like bone batting. It's a little grittier, but there's a similar mentality. So it should be a lot of fun. Oh, cool. Very cool. And I know it's being shopped at other festivals right now. I will before that, probably even before this comes out, I'll put up some link on our social media so you can find more information, because they don't have it sitting in front of me at the moment of when and where you can get tickets if you're in the area or I. You know, just follow their page and say, Oh yeah, the connoisseur is great. Let's see. I think that was about all I wanted to talk about at the beginning. So I will jump right into stuff. I've seen you guys have anything, any objection to that? No, okay, well, so I told you I was binging the show from, and I have finished the show from, oh my gosh, and I realized I've got a little bit of a hangover, not a alcoholic hangover. This is a first people, this is breaking news. I should have probably said not just an alcoholic, but a television show hangover, because after after this, I was like, What should I watch next? And nothing looked good. Yeah, this was just so intense, and it is very depressing. I don't know how they're gonna go forward with this. And the second season ends on a cliffhanger that reminds me of one of the cliffhangers for lost, and I did not like how they resolved that. But everybody in this show is just so good. It is so creepy. I I can't believe I slept on this show. I can't believe it hasn't had more just like marketing or anything. I haven't heard anybody talking about it. I just had seen the trailer already. I can't remember as well I watch is it on Apple TV? It's on MGM, but it's the first two seasons are on Prime right now? Yeah, this third season that's coming up will be exclusive to MGM again for probably eight years. I'm always shocked that it still exists MGM. I'll tell you the one thing that just infuriates me so MGM is the one that has the logo of the lion that roars this they have replaced that lion with a digital lion, and then the logo moves to the side, so he is roaring from the side, and it is the cheapest, shittiest CGI I have ever seen. Like, why would you make this the first thing everybody sees? Let me, let me also make you even angrier. I just saw a film with a MGM lion on it, and they had the lion. He was muted, Oh, he didn't make any sound. And I was like, What the fuck is this goes Oh, silently, then telling me that quiet missed something, sync up, something I I don't know. Are you watching a quiet place? I was not. I was not. That would make sense. That would have been lovely. But no. Well, so new season of from is coming up. I think I'll wait for it to I don't know if it dumps all at once or if it is weekly, but as soon as it's done, I'll probably do my MGM plus seven day trial and yep, for that again, or I'll find somebody who's watching it, make them record it for me or something. Anyway, that was from it's a stupid title. I hate talking about it. There it is. Well, I managed to get out to the movie theaters this week. It's becoming a rarer and more difficult thing to do. And I went and saw blink twice, which is the new Channing Tatum horror film. Oh, this is horror. Yes, I did not get that from the trailer. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, no. So the trailer kind of sets up this idea that there's this rich philanthropist, not philanthropist, but like tech dude who has bought himself a private island, and there's two girls who managed to get themselves invited to the private island. And when they get there, it gets real weird, and things start happening. They don't understand. And at 1.1 of them just disappears, but no one else remembers her. So yeah, so it's got some of those kind of prisoner vibes to it, and it's a the directorial debut by Zoe Kravitz, right, but I will say it's a good movie. Fuck is it depressing and dark? It actually starts it's the first feature film I've seen that starts with a trigger warning, because you just don't expect from any of the marketing for the film to be the level of dark that it goes and by the end, you're like, Okay, I just want to curl up and just, I need chocolate real bad. It's just really tough. It's a really tough watch. Wow. Okay, I this has not been getting good reviews. I haven't heard anything about it personally, so I just didn't know. But, and I think it's considered a big flop, I think it is a big flop, which is too bad, I will say, just like with trap, like Channing Tatum's having the time of his life. He's like, I get to be a like, bad person. This has been any so naturally charismatic that you're just. Just, you can see why people would get sucked into this place and do these things that maybe they're less comfortable with. He's just so, like, easygoing and interesting. And you just are like, Yeah, that sounds awesome. Sounds fun, dude. Yeah, I want to do this thing that I'm naturally sounds awful, and actually is terrible. And, oh my God, why did I do it. So yeah, they really play up to that. And that's that's pretty fun. As you were talking, I just recall that you've got a crush on Channing Tatum. I Okay. I actually thought he was a big, dumb lug for a very long time, and then I realized he's awesome. And I wouldn't say I have a crush on him, because he's not my type. But I loved watching him in White House down because I was like his fucking cat like reflexes. The guy should not move the way he moves. He's bouncing off walls like he weighs nothing. It's just incredible to watch his physicality, and he's got her secret stash of magic. Mike, of course, I respect him a lot, is what I will say. I enjoy seeing him on screen. I just remember it might have been white house down, or maybe I think it was white house down, but I remember you kind of gushing all over him doing that one too. And I was like, Oh yeah, I forgot. It's always fun to watch Vanessa have a crush. He's not my type, not good looking and charismatic. I don't like that. He's good looking. It's just not my type of good look. Anyway, it's fine. He's clearly, to everyone's eyes, a good looking individual, and he's also extremely, like, got a great personality for screen. I don't know. I just like it as a person. I don't like him. No, I don't. It's a lot of pushback on that, Eric, have you seen anything cool? I'm gonna toot a little bit, I guess. Also kinda like Kelly's been doing recently. Well deserved, excuse me, well deserved. But Daniel Hickey, a local guy who runs a Seattle horror filmmakers page and get together thing several months back, posted on a let's raise some funds for scarecrow page. Hey, we should do a screening. I jumped in. Yeah, let's do that. So over the next couple months, we've been working on putting a screening together, working with Seattle International Film Festival, because why not? They're the biggest, best film festival in Seattle as far as well, biggest, you know, by the bone bat, but the SIF is fantastic. And actually, despite the reputation from years ago, work really well with the city of Seattle's film industry. And so we they gave us the use of the Egyptian Theater, which seats 565 people. So we decided, let's do a screening of house the 1977 absolutely batshit crazy, incredible film, and put that together. We had raffle items. We had all kinds of stuff. And this was this last Friday, so this is two nights ago, and on Tuesday, they contacted me, going, we've sold like, 350 tickets. And I'm like, Oh, wow, holy shit. I was afraid of myself. 50 tickets or something. By Friday day the screening would completely sold out and packed that 560 seats. 65 seats had raffle tickets being sold all over the place. There's a representative from scarecrow named Megan, who had a table with some arts and stuff she'd done that was being used to support scarecrow. And don't know the exact money raised, but it's pretty good. Plus it was double night, or in a double period, where somebody's guaranteed to double everything that they get donated to them. Very nice. So everything got doubled that night. So yeah, it was a huge success. Then we had a lot of fun. Steve Hollis and his family came up and helped. Why? Because if you've ever been to bone back, they know how to run a raffle ticket poll. Nice. So they did that on last minute, and it was wonderfully helpful. And Kimberly Douthat, who's been here before, helped by selling some raffle stuff and taking pictures for us. So that was great. You know, Bob and everybody, Tony and all everybody was there. Yeah, you've been on this show, and the atmosphere is just great. It's a weird movie. Yeah, is this your first time seeing it? Actually second okay? Really weird about watching a second time, it makes a little more sense. The first time I watched, it's so strange that you kind of just get caught up in the weirdness. And this time I was like, Okay, I didn't it'd been long enough that I didn't exactly remember it, but I remembered it enough. It's like, there's one scene where one of the girls. Walks out and say, Oh yeah, here's where the movie starts to get really freaking weird. And and why? She going, oh shit, there's a story here. There is a actual story about the one lady's their name. They all have weird names like gorgeous and Kung Fu and fantasy. And gorgeous aunt lives in this house, and there's a story of what she's doing and what's going on. It's just this really weird situation. But so if you're interested, you know, if you don't get good streaming service, or you're out the middle of nowhere, Scarecrow will mail movies to your friend in the US order their disc by mail. Like Netflix, different version, yeah, like Netflix, but more expensive, but totally worth it, because you can catch your stuff that day, and they have a huge variety. So if there's any film you're like, I can't find this movie. It's so weird, and they only have it in Japan from the 80s. They'll have it. They'll probably have it, yeah, hundreds of 1000s of films. Can't remember their last count, but it was a lot, way, very overwhelming to go into that their establishment. Is that a Toho film? It is, actually, it is, yeah, I should let everybody know right now that we're coming up on October. We're gonna be talking Toho films next month. Is that going to be one of yours? You think probably not, because I've seen it a couple times, and there's so much cool shit from toho, it's hard to it's a hard movie to talk about, too, because I've been asked to describe it, and I'm like, I don't really know what was going on in it. I can't even tell if I like the movie. If I'm being honest, I vaguely remember a cat, and it felt like a Japanese music video. That's as far as I got. The director, the Megan, gave a little speech beforehand with background on the film, and I guess it was written by this guy who ended up directing it, nobuku abayashi, and spent two years kind of in limbo trying to get it done. They could not get a director to take it on, and he's a commercial soap director or something. Oh my God. And they eventually said, Do you want to drink something? Yes, yes, I do. And, boy, that's that's that so much, so much the aggressive happiness at times, and the weird drama, it's very commercial. And I actually did like it more this time than the first time I had a lot like your reactions, like, well, this is really interesting, but, yeah, no, if I like it, I like it a lot more on second viewing, so that was a lot of fun. I hope I'm not going to step on anyone's toes with this, and if I am that, I will move on. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. I did not see it. Feel free. I am a little stunned at the good press this film is getting and I, I don't think I cracked a smile much less laughed in this but the tomato meter is off the charts. It's like 86% or something like that. Like, really, for this movie, Winona Ryder cannot act unless what she was doing was perhaps a tribute to that meme of her looking confused that award show. Oh my gosh, she's just got that look on her face the entire movie, weird. There's too many plot lines like I always say, you know, why? Why can't we streamline this a little bit? You guys, in my vast goth girl knowledge, you don't and an older goth woman does not look exactly the same and dress exactly the same and wear their hair exactly the same as they did when they were a goth teen girl. I was thinking it was like a stunt or something in the plot, like I couldn't work out why she would still look exactly like that. No, she looks exactly like that with the hair and everything. And I was like, okay, 40 years later, you haven't decided? No, these bangs are kind of stupid. I'm going to wear my hair different. Yeah, people the black clothes, but you're not going to look like you did at 16. Yeah. Plus, I just don't like this kind of writing. The reason that the first one was so good was a really hungry Tim Burton and a really hungry Michael Keaton, who was ad libbing most of his lines, and you just end up with magic, right, right? This one, I guarantee you, he did not ad lib anything. It was all written for him. There wasn't a one liner that was as good as anything from the old cartoon, much less the old movie. Plus Keaton is 70. You know, you can throw that makeup on and make. And look a little bit like himself, but he can't quite move like he did, and there's this bizarre subplot that doesn't need to be there with his ex wife coming, yeah, coming to kill him, take revenge on him, even though I'm like, Why is she taking revenge on him? She she killed him, but she also wants revenge. And then Beetlejuice wants to he's still got a crush on Lydia, so he just wants to marry her, but she's getting married to this guy that we have we hate almost from the beginning. And I was like, when you do this to a character, you make her look really stupid that she's in love with this fucking asshole of a guy. You're just like, Well, what happened to the smartest kid in the room? Yeah. So just I hated it. Then I get on Facebook and all my friends are like, Oh my god, return to Tim Burton's magic. And I was like, this movie was shit. So yeah, not one, not one goddamn laugh in this thing. I haven't seen it, but I also kind of like Ghostbusters. It was not one of the films that deep into my brain is one of the this important film for me. I liked it. I thought it was a lot of fun. Played it a lot in Suncoast, you know, even with the model line. Here's coming, all right. But, yeah, I've seen, I've seen, I guess the stuff I've seen is more middle of the road where a lot of people, at least some of the ones I've read, are admitting I think I like this because I love the original movie so much that I want to like it. I think that's why I didn't like it, because I love the original movie. I mean, it's hard to remember how original that film was when it popped out, how crazy looking it was and how cool Beetlejuice was. I identified with Beetlejuice so hard because I was like, Oh, I am also an asshole. And here he's just, I don't know, there's a lot of really neat effects, and they're mostly practical, so that's super cool. But otherwise I was like, Oh God, you know, Tim, go back to picking up your next TV that your TV show you turn into a film and ruin for everybody who loved the original IP. I'll just watch the original then go back and re enjoy that one again. Yeah, it's funny. I was sure I was gonna be seeing that instead of blink twice. I was like, oh, okay, like, Austin. Where are we gonna go see do you want to see Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice, because he's a huge fan of Beetlejuice. And he was like, No. I was like, what? I thought we were definitely seeing this movie. He's like, No, I really like the original. I don't, I don't want to see that. I was really all right. That's fine. That's fine with me. And it feels, I feel like I am glad because I came to the original film much later. And so it was always like, kind of, I was too young when it came out, and it was just really weird. And then when I got older, I missed the boat, and so it never was like, my like, the cartoon was more for me than the movie was. So I'm sort of like, with the sequel, like, I don't, I don't know, I don't have a huge need to see Winona Ryder being creaky. But there's also, you know, the they decide to attack the elephant in the room, which is, of course, Jeffrey Jones's pedophilia. And he's not, he's not in the movie, but they have a claymation version of him for his flashback of his death. And, I mean, the entire movie revolves around them coming back for his funeral, so, but I was like, Okay, I get why you don't want him in the movie. Why are you then bringing him up constantly in the movie? This is like, I Yeah. So I just thought it was, I missed the boat. Man. Well, there is a movie that I thought was gonna be really, really stupid, and I went ahead and checked out when last weekend, while hanging out with my best friend celebrating my birthday, I think you guys might have actually liked it, and I just did not realize which is Abigail. Yeah, I thought it was that was fun. Yeah, I really liked it. I thought it was supposed to be really dumb, which is why I didn't see it in theaters. I don't know, like, I thought I'd heard a lot of bad things about it, and then I was like, this is a fun film. Yeah, I've seen a lot of weird, negative reaction to I think you made the best point about it with the they should have left it a mystery. Yeah, the trailer was not a vampire before the first time people got to see the movie. Yeah, exactly. If you're spending 2030, minutes keeping that a mystery, maybe longer in the film, you should not be giving that away in the trailer. That was a huge mistake. But like everyone. You know, the actors are just having such a good time. I think it's pretty well written. It's fun, it's fast, it's not like a deep film, but I don't know, pretty enjoyable. Yeah, I've man, I wonder if some of it is because right now, as a whole, it's a little better this year than was last year. But as a whole, horror is really grim. Everything is deep and nasty and gnarly and mean, yeah. And this isn't, it isn't. It's incredibly violent, yeah, but it's kind of tongue in cheek violent. The characters are not all assholes, and the ones that are assholes are amusingly assholes, as opposed to just being a dick that you Yeah, I don't care to see you on screen anymore. You're just a dick. Yeah, watching people who, you know, they all have this, like, bad thing about them, but they also have these fun or interesting, you know, good things about them that you're just like, Well, I do want to see you again. All right. Like, even that guy who looks kind of like Elon Musk to me, like he's still interesting. Every time I see him, I'm like, is Elon Musk in this movie? Yeah, he was in what was that other vampire series, the strain? Oh, he's the Russian exterminator. Oh, okay, I read the book. I didn't see the thing, but, yeah, you got the best version of it. Excellent. Okay, I posted about this one as my 100 in the on the strange eons Facebook talk page. On Facebook, what I'm going to talk I mentioned it again, because I know we've got a lot of it's so bad. It's good kind of lovers on this listening nightmare weekend from 1986 directed by Henry Sala, right? You know who that is, right? They did one movie. Oh god, I'm gonna look really stupid right now, but it's phenomenal crap. This is the one with the motorcycle murderer. Is that, am I thinking of something? There is a motorcycle thing in it. But now, this is the one with the woman, this college age girl and a dad who's built this like supercomputer, and she has a computer in her room. It's the one of the little puppet I posted the picture of, okay, which has a strange little puppet that runs the computer. And when she plays like looks like in a one of the Atari racing games on the computer, the the lady who's kind of the bad guy in the movie, her car gets taken over, and she's driving her car, not knowing she's driving her car. And I don't know if anything's ever really done with that, although they do that twice, and there's these weird little metal steel ball things that looks like smaller version of Phantasm without without the little blades, but does the same thing, like, goes into somebody's mouth and their head explodes, and all this weird things going on, and there's they're trying to create, like the perfect person, and they've been experimenting on animals, and the lead bad folks want to move it to humans and the dad hero, and are like, we can't do that. We're not ready. And, of course, they're definitely not ready. And Robert John Burke, who's been in a shit ton of stuff, you'd recognize he's one of those guys he got, oh yeah, is fun as the lead. And it's just incredibly stupid. And I was literally just scrolling through Peacock's relatively nice, large section of weird ass horror like this looks awful. Let's give it a few minutes for my 100 days. And I'm going all right, this is a hidden gem of stupidity the vinegar syndrome needs to put out. Yeah, this is not at all the movie I thought you were talking about. Okay, so this is on peacock though. Yes, I don't have peacock So, yeah, I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's someplace else for rent, but, you know, it's one of their free streaming films that sounds maybe that's what I'm watching tonight. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay, how about we take a little break, guys, and then when we come back, we're going to be talking about giant insects. I look no further. Rocks and buds and things are here in an everything battle for domination, where traposaurus fights off evil beetle while gravel guts and bloodstone confront the fuzzing menace of wicked cricket. It's rocks versus bugs, with mortals as a tasty prize. Where will be will end? Can robots, soldiers or heroes stop them? They're on the move and ready for action, rocks and bugs and things from ideal you. And we're back. Whoops. You know, got a lot of positive feedback on the switch to five minutes talking about the film, and then the longer time spent talking about the film. I don't know if you guys will be able to talk about the film I chose for giant insects, and this is not what I was thinking when I chose the sub genre. But here we go. Give myself five minutes, and I am talking about a little movie from 1990 called the apple gates. Every year, family bazaar consults the US Census update, you and your family have been chosen by our publication as the most normal family in America. Johnny, eat some more sugar. You're so growing. The people who brought you Heathers would like you to meet the apple gates the Okay? Crawlers. Rise Applegate, Jane, age 38 occupation, homemaker. I met my husband at Maryland University, where I majored in home economics. I happened to find a pile of rancid trash, hunting for bargains. Jane Applegate, Sally born, both from 1871 Scorpio. I enjoy swimming, chicken McDonald's and gymnastics. Kiss on the second date. Whoa. Time out. Such a tasty new neighbor. Applegate, Johnny Howdy, school, science, paper and heavy metal music. Do you think we're jeopardizing the mission by bringing the children along? No good for image chain. They're the typical American family Census Bureau records. Now, let's see applegates and hitting every statistical norm right on the nose with typical family problems. What do you think about putting down that brochure and doing a little mating? You know, it on season at home? Sally, what happened to your stomach? I've got a bun in the oven. Meet the Applegate kids, a couple of losers, parents of pigs at the store. Well, you've done is spend money. I'm just trying to act like a normal American house. Why at the office? This is a nuclear power plant, not a cat house. There goes the neighborhood. It would be easy for them to fit in something really weird, if they could only get the bugs out. Sonic bug return. It drows Those little creatures. Bonkers, Ed Bigley Jr, stalker, Channing and Dabney Coleman as Aunt Bee you homo sapien, they wouldn't harm a fly. Bingo, meet the apple gates, a new species of comedy, okay? Or meet the apple gates here in America, sure. Written and directed by Michael Lehman, who has 55 credits, tons of TV episodes of the terror Californication, True Blood. He also directed the movies Heathers, Airheads and Hudson Huck Wow. It was also written. His co writer on this is Redbeard Simmons. Three credits, stocking the beaver gets a boner, one that leaped out at me. And 72 episodes of something called DVD TV enhanced version, which was apparently a movie trivia series that was available. Gotcha, I'm not familiar with it at all this stars, Ed Bagley, Jr, who has 353, credits. 23 episodes of Harry Hartman, Mary Hartman, five episodes of Battlestar Galactica, 137 episodes of st elsewhere, 15 episodes of Arrested Development, 14 episodes of Better Call Saul. 37 episodes of young Sheldon and at least one episode of every other TV show ever made sure. Yeah, right. Also in this is stocker Channing, who has 101 credits. She was Rizzo in Greece. She was in The First Wives clothes, First Wives Club, Practical Magic. And 69 episodes of The West Wing. And Dabney Coleman is in this 180 credits, including You've Got Mail, cloak and dagger, nine to five Tootsie, 67 episodes of something called the Guardian that I never heard of. And then Glen shacks is pretty much the only other name you would recognize in here, 91 episodes or 91 credits, including sunset Heather's nightlife, but mostly known as Otho in the original Beetlejuice. Also in this is Camillo keeper, bubby. Bubby Jacoby. Bobby. Jacoby. Sorry, Bobby. Susan Barnes and Roger. Aaron Brown, look how you guys. This film is something else. It opens on a couple Peace Corps volunteers teaching a very primitive tribe of Amazon natives how to speak English, and they are teaching. Them with an old Dick and Jane book. Remember Dick and Jane and Sally? Well, there are also developers destroying the rainforest right next door. They're doing this, and all of a sudden, everyone is attacked by giant praying mantises. Now not gigantic praying mantises, but just human sized ones. Oh, okay, so we see them studying very closely the book of Dick and Jane. And then we cut to a new family moving into a suburban neighborhood in the United States of America. They are very sweet, if a bit old fashioned in the way they talk and dress and wear their hair. And the dad and mom are named Dick and Jane. The kids are Johnny and Sally. So yes, you guys, this is a film about giant bugs that can shape shift into humans, and they have moved to this town where Dick will be taking a job at a nuclear power plant. The point of this is that he is supposed to cause a meltdown, and as they put it, cause a nuclear holocaust. Now even in 1990 I would think people were smarter than this and realize that's not how a nuclear holocaust would happen. But what do you expect from a writer whose legal name is Redbeard. So of course, the plan goes right very quickly, because humans ruin everything, and as a family hangs out with humans more they pick up all of our bad habits. The son, whose cover story is that he is a metalhead, gets turned on to pot and becomes a deadbeat. The daughter is, for some reason, inextricably attracted to a human high school football player, but when he comes on to her, it quickly turns into rape. She has to cocoon him up and hide him in the closet. Mom is turning into a shopaholic and keeps opening and maxing out credit cards, and Dad starts having an affair with his secretary at work. So there's all kinds of slapstick and satire going on. And of course, Dabney Coleman in full drag, but still with his signature mustache and cigar. So I don't really know what to do with this movie. There are a couple cute moments. For example, the daughter gets very pregnant, very, very pregnant, very quickly, and turns lesbian, and the rest of the family secrets are all found out because they've all cocooned the humans who find out about them somewhere in the house. Oh, my God, but like the dude who does the raping, no punishment for that. I can't tell if that is a critique on our culture or just bad writing. I have a tagline, meet the new bugs on the block. Wow. And some trivia. According to the American Film Institute, one scene in which an earthworm is tortured with fire was created using a fake worm which extended and contracted in realistic movement. That has to be a goddamn lie. I definitely watched an earthworm snuff film. It was very realistic and weird. Oh, I've got Roger Roberts 1990 review here. He says, Is there a satirical point here? Parallels we can draw with real life lessons to learn evasion of the Body Snatchers was widely read as social commentary in which individualism was under attack by sinister foreign forces. But this movie doesn't even seem to have a point of view, unless it's something on the level of Stupid Pet Tricks, in which human behavior becomes funny when it's mimicked by life forms that do not quite understand what they are doing. I know we don't talk about Rotten Tomatoes, but yeah, 9% woof, man, I can shock you. Got through that in five minutes. Wowzer I was I could not stop watching this film. My mouth hanging going, why are there so many big stars in this film? It sounds like Coneheads. It sounds so much like Coneheads, and also the Simpsons, and also this weird. That's real weird. I I was like, this is the same guy who wrote and directed Heathers. Where is that talent at in this film? It is so it is so bad at Begley Jr runs around naked at one point. And I was like, Oh, this is right around the time that he was in Amazon women on the moon, where he also, have you ever seen that? They have a wonderful segment where he is the Invisible Man. It's all black and white and but he's he thinks he's invisible, and he's in a bar making fun of people, but he's completely naked, and they can see him, and they're like, and Christ, here comes the Invisible Man, like the guy's playing darts, and he grabs the Dart and makes it that movie was funny. Yes, this movie, not so much. Oh no. So also, good luck trying to find this movie. I don't know why I went to such lengths to watch this piece of shit. Wow, you were you were hoping for the best. I don't know. I was just like, wow, this I don't know how I never not seen this movie. Sure, giant bugs that transform into humans. This came out about the time I started working at Suncoast, yeah, and I think we got maybe two copies in, and never copies. Yeah, they just sat there on the shelf collecting dust. So bizarre, and we're going back the apple. What is this, right? I don't care that much. I mean, it sounds like such an interesting plot that, like, I don't know, I'd be very tempted as well. This sounds funny. We all like satirical, yeah, looks at our culture and everything, but it's the same joke over and over. It's like, boy, they really love chocolate. Does their bugs? Get it? I don't. I really don't. Like is it? Do you feel like the characters are all just super one dimensional? Then, for sure, they can be old fast when you're like, okay, yeah. I mean, it's kind of funny, because they show up as basically America's nuclear family, and then they all devolve into the worst versions of who they are. You know, the metalhead becomes just a huge Stoner and the girl ends up hating men and all that stuff. But I was like, totally fine with that. That part was actually kind of funny, but then no punishment for the guy who rapes her, literally rapes her and impregnates her, not an attempted rape, Jesus. Because when you say she cocooned him. I was like, Oh, she got to him before he nope, no, how do you? How do you? Let me explain how people get pregnant. Mom, no, but I can't with you. I'm gonna put five minutes on the buzzer. Vanessa smokes, all right, all right. So I went with a, I don't know, I just kind of went with the first one I could think of that I hadn't seen. So I went with 2002 eight legged freaks. I It's a beautiful morning here in prosperity, Arizona, right here at kfrd, the only source for the inside dope on space aliens and when they plan to invade it's time for America too wake up. People wake up before too late. People are saying, well, you know, it's coyotes and it's wool, but we know the truth. You What exactly is that spider man? Our town is being attacked by giant spiders. You it. Warrior brothers Pictures presents the biggest, nastiest fusion spider movie of all time. Oh, yeah. Hey, Spidey, thank you. Which, by the way, has the worst movie poster I have ever seen. It is trash. It's awful. It looks like a really bad Photoshop. I don't know why they put that together. It's written and directed by Elroy Eckle him seven credits. So very popular TV movie, the nest. Return of the loving dead, living dead. Necro Paul, necropolis, Return of the Living Dead rave to the grave and without a paddle. Nature's calling. After this bout of movies, he returned to New Zealand, which is where he's from, to develop and produce, which is what IMDb says. But then he developed and produced nothing. So I don't know what happened this dude, but produced by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. I know it's around the time that they kind of split up. I'm not quite, I couldn't find quite what had happened there, but they did work on this technically together, and it does have some Emerick ness to it, starring David Arquette, 111 And credits and way more stuff than I ever really clocked him being in. He was in the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer movie. He was in, of course, scream as Dewey Rob and never been kissed. And of course, we all know him from being married to Courtney Cox. He is no longer married to her. He now does a ton of producing and TV voice work. He was also the voice of Eddie and SSX Turkey, which I was like, oh shit. I played a lot of that game, also starring Scarlett Johansson, which I was like, Wait, this movie, all right. Doug E Doug Leon Rippy and Matt chizarchi, which is one of, if anyone's seen Gilmore Girls, they know that every one of her boyfriend ends up becoming a very famous actor at one point, and he was one of them who went on to do other things and probably had a bigger career than, unfortunately, either the Gilmore Girls. So story, young Mike Parker, little kid, not little little kid, medium kid, visits a local exotic spider enthusiast, slash friend named Joshua, who has noticed that when he starts feeding the these crickets from the local pond to his spiders, they seem to be getting bigger and bigger at an exponential rate. It probably has absolutely nothing to do with the strange chemical barrel that is floating around in the water after a truck avoided a little bunny in the road and fell over and it tumbled all in. Nope, no way, anyway. So as soon as the kid leaves after, you know, getting a real exposition about what each spider does and their strengths and weaknesses, they immediately escape and kill Joshua, which is too bad, because I just started liking him, and they escaped to the local mines. Meanwhile, Chris McCormick, aka David Arquette, returns to town after a long absence to see if he can. I think it's to reopen his father's mines, which have closed and since crippled the town. The mayor wants to sell off everyone's land, because he kind of knows that secretly, there is supposedly a huge deposit of gold in the mines, and he wants to sell everyone out. He already has two unsuccessful things, including a giant mall no one goes to, and a alpaca farm Chris wants to see also the one that got away, Sam, who is the mother of Mike and Scarlett J Hanson. But meanwhile, the spiders start to overtake the town via the mines and then in people's homes, they eat all the pets. So trigger warning the pets will be gone. They are then forcing all the survivors who are trying to outrun them, to band together and outsmart the spiders taking hold of them all. So there's a lot of fun characters in the town. We get a conspiracy theorist, radio DJ. We get the boyfriend of Scarlett Johansson, who's really into dirt biking. Also fun rave scene, but he also it's fine, because we like him later, so don't worry about it. I'm just gonna stick with the word I heard you say, which was rave. It's like, Oh, good. They had a party. They had a great party. Everyone had a good time. Thanks, man, it's all right. She tased him, so it all is forgiven, and he's really good at dirt biking. And it's a funny, funny scene. This had way. It was a way crazy movie. It was better than I expected, or more fun. Maybe the spiders have a insane sound design. It's got a real Looney Tunes humor and incredibly bad spider CGI, which kind of works in favor of the film, in a way, I mean, and the noises are crazy, like, sometimes they're growling, sometimes they sound like gremlins. Sometimes they're making, like, just the like sound effects library, just stick random noises on top of spiders, spice your bets. It's pretty bananas. I think I like this film, though, so yeah, I didn't have a lot of trivia. Honestly, the title came from David Arquette improvising a phrase on on screen, which you can see there was a sequel announced by Dean Devlin back in 2003 it would have had Elroy echo him returning to direct, but and date are kept back as Chris, but nothing ever more was said about it. So I love this movie. I think it is really cute. It is really cute. That is a good word for it. It's It was surprisingly like, I don't know I thought it was going to be. It did gross me out. It grossed me out a lot. I was like, Oh, these are fucking disgusting spiders, but creepy enough looking that, you know, yeah, even with the weird CG, even with the weird CGI, but it's so funny, like, what at one point when the spider follows the cat into the drywall, and you just have this weird like battle going on via sound effects between the. Wall, behind the wall, and at one point you get all the way up the wall a cat impression that sticks out of the wall in various like, shocked faces of the cat, until it's on the ceiling. It is. We gotta watch this again. Oh my god, it's so ridiculous. This is the one where also let me have like the Is this the one with the can of spider spray, and then the giant spider shows up and he's like, he has perfume that he's they, do you want to Yeah, they in the spider. That does get the spider kind of mad for a minute. It might have it was, it was a lot of jokes happening very quickly, very fast. Yeah, glad you liked it. I am glad you liked it too. Yeah, I was, I feel we worked towards the darker side of weird ass movies. Yes, I blame you guys for a lot. Well, I wasn't sure. I mean, I know you don't like humor, but I felt like this kind of humor, there was something about it that worked more for me than most. Yeah, it has a little bit of slapstick to it, but it's not like gross out humor and cartoon slapstick. Yeah, it would really hurt very silly. And they had very likable characters. It didn't have like people, well, I mean, except for the guy who's rabies. But then I will say it's funny, because he spends the whole rest of the movie on his dirt bike in the mines, going around and around. Like they come to him days later, and they're like, he's still on his dirt bike, going being chased by the spiders. I'm like, How long have you been doing this? It's almost like, all right, you got your punishment, bud. David Arquette is a weirdo and everything, but he's so likable in this movie. Yeah, he's he's fun, he's sweet. You're like, oh, he doesn't have the guts to ask out the girl, and it's been forever. And then she just says, Yeah, your dad told me that you're in love with me, and like you actually couldn't you left town because you couldn't stand seeing my horrible husband to treat me so badly. And, yeah, we're in love. And she kisses him and says, already, see you later. Excellent, excellent. Moving right along, Eric, you ready? Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that I've got a different, tone of a film, talking about 2014 enemy, you don't go to the movies, Do you? I don't, I don't go out that much. Is there a reason why you're asking me this? You know, maybe you had a recommendation. Anthony Claire, 3650, rathburg Road. Hello, good afternoon. Hey, I'm calling to speak today, calling from, I'm sorry, I think there's gonna miss him. Okay? I'm gonna, I'll call back later. You. Who's on the phone? The same guy who called before same guy. Are you lying to me? I You are my only son. I am your only mother. I She looks exactly like you? What's happening? I really don't know what you're talking about. Why'd you come looking for me? I needed to know how some questions for you. Who are you? What's wrong? You're crazy. Ah, crazy. Oh, my God, that's right. This is Dennis villanue, who created the dividing film Dune, which I love, Sakara, which I still haven't seen, the amazing Blade Runner 2049, and a movie called. In the mail store, which, you know, that's kind of cool. That's cool. 21 directing credits I did not realize, uh, written by Jose saramango, who wrote embargo and blindness, really blindness, I don't know, the other and heavy, heavier gulion, who wrote invader and treading water. So not mainstream folks, necessarily in this except the lead actor is Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh, yep, who? Nightcrawler, ambulance, Prince of Persia, the SANS of Tom Melanie Laurent, who is in glorious bastards, my son, my son and the killer, Sarah Gore good on who is in vampires versus the Bronx and antiviral so Jake's definitely the name involved in this movie, but everybody else involved is really talented. This is a weird, strange film about control and self knowledge of self or something. Jake general plays a professor who starts out talking about dictators and the way they come about, and how this stuff's like this is creepily current sounding, but his world unravels when he spots a doppelganger in a movie of himself that he's watching, that a stranger recommended he see, even though it's an obscure, locally made film. So it seems like a point is being made at him seeing this person, because he's only in like three movies. Comes obsessed with finding him, looks up his name, tries to call him, his wife answers, and she's can't figure out why her husband is calling him and doesn't know who she is. And the Jake Dylan Hall character that's in the movie is kind of a dick. He's a arrogant, for lack of a better term, alpha male thinking kind of person. And his main character, Professor, is a good guy who's living a decent life. But, oh man, this is hard movie to talk about. It is really strange. It is really interesting. The acting by Gyllenhaal is staggeringly good. I mean, it's a guy who's seen Nightcrawler and stuff where he is really good. Here he suddenly creates two entirely different people, and he does it, and you have no problem telling who is who at any point, because his mannerisms are very specific, and they adjust from character even when they switch clothes and the ask guys dress like Professor and Vice versa, you're still don't get confused necessarily. And who is who? What you do get confused on is like, are these actually two people? Is he one person who's going through some shit. It is a thinking film. It is, I guess, it is incredibly well done. It's virtually impossible to talk about beyond what I've said, because you just kind of got an experience. There is a giant spider in the movie, but I can't tell you how it shows up because it is balls ass. Weird spoiler territory, okay, although it does have a the very beginning, they start with this weird cult kind of thing, and there's a big spider. I'm like, How about it's not the only giant spider in this movie, because that's just like, twice the size of a tarantula. That's not really big, but the one that shows up is definitely choice the size of the tarantulas the first time I've seen Kelly we're talking about, so it's not that big. Size of a baseball mid. No. Thank you. There is a all the cast has signed a confidentiality I agreement that they cannot speak or explain what the spider is supposed to mean. So it's to your own interpretation. There's a the rental I got, I think, off a prime had a cool an interview with the two of them. At the end, those guys love each other. They really, really have a lot of respect. Dennis explains the movie as one plus one equals one, and how we play various characters as ourselves as our lives progress. And the main reason he did it is a movie he said he had to make before he could make any other film. And that shows because there's a lot of love and a lot of passion put into this film. And the main reason he wanted to do this story was he really he worked with DPS. He's worked with editors, he's worked with people like that, but he's never worked with an actor as this, like this, the his partner through the movie. You know, he says actors come in and out. They do stuff, even the leads. Yes, but this one, I wanted somebody that we could sit down and chew on this movie and really deep into the character and really create something unique. And I think they did. Jake had a great line. He's like, Yeah, it was really easy for me to be the guy who was playing the narcissistic actor, but I had to work a little harder to get the history professor down here, but said entirely the joke, and Dennis laughs at that. But I gotta say, incredible film, incredible. I never even heard of this. Oh, really, I saw this a couple years ago, but it's funny. It's so complex and strange that I honestly couldn't remember the plot aside from the exclamation point near the end, it's just that was all so I don't know it was. I will say, anybody who loves movies like dune or, you know, 2049, or, you know, don't, don't watch this movie because you're a fan of Dennis, Millennium, sci fi ish, it's horror ish, but it is. It is not the big scale. Yeah, it's not the epic that you're looking for. It doesn't feel like any of his other films, like maybe, is it prisoner or maybe Sicario? Like, it's got a little bit more that small feel to it. But this is, yeah, this is a very Kafkaesque piece. Great word to use. Another one of his finishing lines, sometimes, from Dennis, is sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious. They are the dictator inside ourselves. I wonder why he felt like this movie was one he had to make that was personal. Like, what did he do? Yeah, was he going something, going through, like, a version of a midlife crisis director or something, but big fan, did you say you had to rent this? Or is it? Yeah, it's very I just saw rent. But for different places, some place said it was on canopy. They're like, Oh, great, no rent, but it wasn't there. But it's, you know, $3 rentals or whatever, because it's been out for a long time, okay, well, my curiosity is piqued. Oh, that was it. We have somebody who want to give a big shout out. Thanks too. Well, before we get to that, Vanessa, you have to pick the next subject. Oh, no, okay, yes. Well, I kind of want to go back to a broader spectrum. I don't know if you can get broader than just a big insect, but how about we do black and white movies, but I want to put a little bit of a twist on it and say modern black and white movies. Sure, I can dig this. What would you consider modern like 1985 or Yeah, I think, I think you could even do maybe 19 late 70s Ford, I don't know, maybe 1984 and I don't know anything where Black and White was no longer than normal. Yes, exactly. There you go. Cool. I love this idea. Okay, so this is the part where we thank everybody for liking and sharing posts, for jumping on the strange eons radio talk page, which is still the best page on Facebook as far as I'm concerned, all right, for calling the strange eons radio hotline, which is 253-237-4266, and especially for participating in the value for value model, which means if you get some value out of this, you give some value back. And with that in mind, big thanks to Kevin bird, yeah. Thank you so much party. Yeah, yeah, that was very generous, and we really appreciate that everybody else. What's your problem? Oh, my God. Well, speaking of value for value, didn't you guys just get some value today as well? Micah, oh God, you son of a bitch. Micah, gave us both some very nice original art. Mine is Micronaut based, and I like perfect. You're even drinking out of a Micronauts tumbler right now. I am a fan, and I can't believe that. Thank you so much. Micah, that was really, really cool, amazing Cthulhu Lovecraft based sketch. Really well done. Very cool. Thank you. I do not have a Cthulhu currently, that's all right, where's my art? Where's mine? What happened? Also, Micah, looking forward very much to hanging with you when you come visit. So, yes, so value for value, you know, whatever you guys put in, if that means befriending and kidnapping us, right, contributing to the talk page on Facebook or Instagram. That's huge. YouTube comments. YouTube comments are great. We had some pretty good ones on our last and don't forget video. Don't forget to leave us reviews as well. That is value. That really adds two things too. Absolutely does. So Okay, guys, so that's it for this show. We'll be back in seven short days. We are going to be talking contemporary black and white films. See you next Thursday, transportation and other considerations for strange eons, radio produced by Pan Am airlines. 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